davidschroth | Stolen From Mr. Stross

Five Reasons to Envy the French

1. Atomic-powered nearly-supersonic trains

You can keep your jet pack and food pills; one sign we're living in the right century is the TGV V150, a train so fast that at top speed the wheel rims are nearly going supersonic. Take a peek at this video (if you're impatient, the money shot is at 9 minutes and 35 seconds in) and remember: it's nuclear powered! (France gets 78.8% of its electricity from nuclear reactors — the highest proportion of any nation on Earth.)

2. Vacations!

Five to eight weeks of vacation time per year is normal for French employees, along with twelve statutory holidays. Until recently they were also working for 35 hours per week. Not so much use to self-employed workaholics like me, but if you work to live rather than living to work, you get an extra few years of leisure time over your career.

3. World's best healthcare

That's according to the World Health Organization. France has a universal healthcare system that costs 30% less per capita than the US system and delivers better outcomes than the US system provides for those who can afford it. Oh, and it's 77% state funded; what insurance companies there are, are non-profit mutual societies. While the UK's NHS is leaner and cheaper, the French system is better.

4. Did not invade Iraq

That whole "cheese-eating surrender monkey" thing is a canard: when George Bush and Tony Blair tried to convince Jacques Chirac to join them in taking down Saddam Hussein he told them where to stick it because, prior to his career as the Republic's #1 Crook, he was a captain in the French army during the Algerian War. Unlike Bush and Blair, he knew from personal experience exactly how easy a western occupation of an Arab state wasn't going to be. Nor was he impressed by the whole Gog-Magog thing. Which is why France didn't pour billions of euros and hundreds if not thousands of lives down a fruitless rat-hole.

5. Cheese!

(Am too busy salivating to eulogize.)