France is paralyzed by its fear, handicapped by its national shortsightedness, lacking imagination, numb, closed off, depressed. We refuse to adapt. Compared with our neighbors, we are not open to reality. Rather than accepting the facts, we prefer to ignore them, deny them or twist them. A masochistic, even a suicidal tendency is developing.

Gérard Mermet,
French sociologist assessing his compatriots
in the Francoscopie 2005 report

Nobody expects anything, nobody hopes for anything — we are all crushed by a kind of nervous breakdown.

Arnaud Montebourg,
député for Saône-et-Loire and Royal porte parole
earlier this year on French radio

We French are pathetic losers.

Maurice Lévy,
head of Publicis Group
commenting on the French loss of the Olympics
PARIS August 1, 2005 (Telegraph)

France is unhappy. Survey after survey tells us so. Why? Are the French getting the wrong meds? But wait! France is also the greatest the French tell us, which, by French lights, would make unhappiness the highest aspiration. This rather straitens those looking to the modèle social français for inspiration.

How to explain the discrepant gap? M. Mermet, the sociologist, suggests the French are [Tapping the right temple.], you know, non compos mentis.

FRANCE'S MENTAL ILLS

PERIGUEUX, France December 21, 2006 (UPI) - Every two years since 1985, the celebrated French sociologist Gérard Mermet has published a detailed assessment of his nation's mood, and the new edition of 'Francoscopie 2007' says that the country is suffering from three simultaneous mental conditions.

It is schizophrenic, Mermet suggests, because it is aware of globalization and other changes underway in the world, but refuses to accept these realities.

It is paranoid, he says, because the French believe they have been comprehensively betrayed by their own elites and that the world is engaged in a "global conspiracy" against them.

And France is hypochondriac, Mermet concludes, because the country is in reality more prosperous, healthier and better educated and its economy more productive than ever before. The French as individuals claim to be happier and better off than ever, and yet the French collectively exaggerate their problems to persuade themselves that they are trapped in a pattern of decline.

More than three-quarters of the French respondents in a series of polls told Mermet's pollsters that they are pessimistic about France's future, while optimistic about their own personal prospects.

PFFT (What is this?): Non compos mentis 2½ | Rayonnement français 0

You seem angry Damian, and quite obsessed. No one to share Christmas with?

Ah, M. Zmx,

We post that you are upset and the best you can do is to post we are unhappy. Oh, someone is upset.

But as you see the someone who is unhappy is personnified France. Unhappy France, confessed to by Frenchies certified by Frenchies. The same old nombriliste mopey mope.

As for who how we spend our holidays -- why, look! We are spending a wee bit of them with you, M. Zmx. Is this the basis for your concern about our happiness? Rest assured, you do not color the holidays a jot.

Merry Christams,
DGB