Hello
So You Want to Be an ISP in the South of France?
(a public service FAQ)
Part 2: Business à la Sauce Française
France is a kind, gentle country where people spend a lot of time thinking about what the right thing to do is. I know this sounds good, but it leads to at least two terrifying realities:
- crossing the street, which most of us mastered as five-year olds,
remains a perilous activity for children of all ages (thoughtful drivers
dissecting thorny social-political dilemmas from behind the wheel do not
"see" pedestrians).
- if you'd rather be an entrepreneur than a municipal employee or letter carrier you are presumed guilty of the sins of usurpation, manipulation, and greed. For the good of all, you must be de-clawed.
Easy: always cross at a marked intersection. Look both ways. When you think you can make it across, run like hell. Wear body armor.
De-clawed?
This is the complex reflection of a venerable, sophisticated culture that has witnessed its own transformation into an important modern industrial society but has never really accepted the fact.
What do you mean, a venerable, sophisticated culture?
- In France profonde, Authenticity is an important concept. You
cannot buy a McCamembert (yet). When something goes out the doors it will
be “just so”, but it will be carefully wrapped (vive la France!)
in multiple layers of Chaos.
- Even when it doesn’t work, it’s lovely. No styrofoam
peanuts allowed.
- French is the language of Love, Diplomacy, and Dining.
The french economy is the world’s fourth largest, behind the United States, Japan, and Germany; ahead of Italy, England, and Canada. Its balance of trade is consistently positive.
Violent crime is real low. Literacy (and unemployment and taxes) is real high. Despite the fact that frenchpersonnes smoke, drink, and eat a lot of cholesterol, they have a greater life expectancy than just about any western people. This is called the “French Paradox”.
But why don't they accept the fact?
This is more difficult. It was explained to me thusly, one evening over a second bottle of Domaine de Mazou, 1991:
“Your american capitalism is the jungle; the denizens must become strong and sleek to stay alive, it is each man for himself. You create a class of fabulously rich and another of fabulously poor.You enshrine freedom. But not equality.
“Here it is closer to the zoo. Everybody has their box, properly laid out; the predators are separated from their prey. We do not accept that people slip through the cracks simply because they have never wanted to learn how to read a balance sheet, or are too poor to hire a lawyer. We have chosen collectively to curtail [your type of] freedom as a way of maintaining equality.”
So in the end, the entrepreneur is perceived as the creature trying to break out of the zoo in order to find his way back to the jungle. In a well-designed zoo, this can only occur by allowing rules to be broken.
Yes, like I was saying, in France, even when it doesn’t work, it’s lovely.
Well, gee, thanks for the pretty images.
Thank you for sitting through them.
But in my nuts and bolts way of looking at things, I can’t imagine that being an entrepreneur in France is worse than, say, having molten lead poured into my trouser pocket.
Yes, I think you’re right there. But this is the “So You Want to
Be an ISP in the South of France?” FAQ.
I have to start somewhere.
