Authors: Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow
Published: 2003
Genre: Memoir
This is one of those books I pick up once in a while when I am astounded by how much I still do not understand about the French. Just when I think I get them, and I think - yes they are different in this way, or that - something happens and I am yet again drawn to some form of theory that will help me understand the people of my host country.
Sixty Million Frenchmen not only provided the historical background that I did not have about the French educational system - some of which I had learnt about from reading Sorbonne Confidential - but gave me a better understanding of the reserve I have often encountered when meeting French people. They are wary of change, and therefore new encounters and friendships represent change.
In a chapter titled Private Space the authors recount the many incidents in which they realised that the French share a great deal of information with strangers, or new friends, but one has to now what is shared and what is completely off-limits. Conversations can be completely halted by simply asking the wrong question, or what may seem to be a banal conversation starter may just kill a conversation. Examples such as "What do you do?" and "What's your name?" , which are common conversation starters for many Anglo-Saxons are not as welcome.
The authors are French-Canadian journalists who decided to document their lives in France in a bid to disprove some of the generalisations they have known about the French. The book is a study of the French and France. A great deal of the insights I already knew, but I did get a number of eye-openers in chapters such as The Enarchy, a chapter on France's institution ENA, the effects of the war; WW2 and the Algeria War on the French psyche - also a great determinant to some French people's attitude to immigrants. The Art of Eloquence and Elite Education I already knew of, and this continues to astound me in how much the French do really believe in both.
There is an entire chapter devoted to the functions of local government and how the départements tie in with préfectures to keep the well-oiled French public system running.
There is a lot of supporting research to most of the chapters and I enjoyed the history lessons, written in the conversational manner the authors use.
Would I recommend it? Yes, if living in France and looking to learn more about France and the French than what you glean from the Expat Guides. Will it give you more insight into the French? Yes, but I am finding that what one thinks of the French, or any other nation is mainly subjective - opinions will always differ, but it does help to have some background into even a fraction of what informs their psyche.
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