We are in the summer of 2008. My wife is pregnant with our twins. We need to find a bigger apartment, but getting a loan is complicated. French banks want proof that you can repay the loan no matter what. We show them our investments, they disdainfully tell us that their value may collapse. A bank sends me to a cardiologist who examines me from every angle. As he prepares to dismiss me without a word, I venture to ask him if he has found anything. ” Nothing “, he grumbles. In fact, he is not in my service, but in that of the bank, which must know if I will live long enough to repay a loan over twenty-five years.
At the time, I find it all ridiculous: these extreme precautions are just another example of the apprehension inspired by modern finance in France. But, barely a month after obtaining our loan, the global financial crisis broke out and the stock market collapsed. Real estate prices are falling due to cascading bankruptcies, but not in France, where subprime mortgages are rare.
When I moved to Paris in 2002, I took with me a lot of prejudices about the French. Petri of French bashing British, I am convinced that they will one day wake up, finally ready to become like us. That is to say, decided to lengthen their working days, reduce public spending, support the United States when they go to war, etc. In short, I hope that France will finally accept globalization as we Anglo-Saxons have done: all we have to do is baptize it “modernity”. However, living in France made me evolve to join the famous formula of the Anglo-Irish novelist Laurence Sterne in his Sentimental journey through France and Italy, published in 1768: “This affair,” I said, “is better organized in France.” » The character who says that is bluffing – he has never visited France – but he is right.
At first glance, the United Kingdom and France are almost twins: about 67 million inhabitants each, crazy centralization, almost identical GDPs and post-imperial frustration. Despite this, the two countries follow different trajectories. As soon as I learn to see France “from the inside”, I realize that its voice is distorted abroad – when you hear it. As for a long distance transmission, the French thought is perceived only through a lot of interferences. Probably largely because she does not speak English, the lingua franca of globalization. If the French Lights lit up in the 21ste century rather than in the 18the century, the world might not notice them.
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