France is in trouble
This article actually started about three years ago, when a coworker and I were discussing the move by the French government to outlaw the word “e-mail.” At the time, in 2003, I found it very odd that a government would be taking such drastic measures against a seemingly low payoff end (there’s no way to enforce it and people are going to call it what they call it, regardless of what they should call it). During our very casual lunch conversation, I mentioned how odd I found this and a discussion began that intrigued me even more than the French government’s seemingly misplaced energy.
As it turns out, this coworker’s father was a very, very high ranking official in the U.S. military (yes, I verified it). As part of his responsibilities he maintained contact with officials from all European countries, including France. Not long before our discussion my coworker’s father had been discussing with his son the sad shape the French government was getting itself into.
According to him, France was losing all cultural identity. The constant concessions shown to special interest and minority groups had begun to give those groups powers which far outweighed their position within the society. In turn, the majority of the society was bearing the brunt of the loss of their power. The minority and special interest groups were holding much more sway than would normally rightfully be theirs.
After our discussion, my coworker revisted the issue with his father and mentioned our discussion. His father’s take on the issue was… again… interesting.
The French government was feeling this loss of cultural identity. Things weren’t “French” any more. They were losing the things which made them “French.” As such, they decided to make the word “e-mail” illegal for use in an attempt to replace it with “courriel.” Their hope was evidently to begin to weed out some Americanized words and replace them with suitable French replacements. This was an attempt to remind the French people that they were French… and not American.
While I always held the story in my memory as interesting and enlightening, it wasn’t until recently that I began to revisit it.
During my normal weekend web surfing and news gathering activities I ran across a blog entry about the French police being unable to defend themselves against what we Americans would consider common thugs (See the original article the post was based on). The article itself was interesting but the comments were even more interesting. According to a linked blog entry there are 751 areas in France which are marked as “no-go zones.” The premise, according to the author, is that these areas are off limits to French police if a crime occurs in them. In other words, if you live there and someone robs you don’t expect the police to come help.
If you read further into the comments, one that seems to get lost in the mix points out that the areas are actually simply economically deficient areas which are marked for improvement. Someone in the comments even points out that their son lives in one of the areas and experiences problems on a constant basis.
Now I understand that reading blog entries and taking them as a credible news source is unhealthy. But I think in this day and age, when France leaves the lion’s share of international work to other countries, then turns over secret communications to enemies of their “friends” and yet wields immense amounts of power at an international level we should be aware of the state of the country on a more detailed level than your average American currently is.
Of course, the French government isn’t sending out press releases to point these things out and the media isn’t covering it in great detail. But I can’t help but feel that if you want to see the relics of western civilization you should do it in the very near future. I would imagine they won’t last long in a riot… they would last an even shorter time in the case that the country were to be overthrown by a violent minority group who detests western culture.
