Debra Ollivier

France and the United States have been feeding off of one another since the French Revolution, and the French woman has been an icon ever since Joan of Arc marched into battle in chic, form-fitting armor (or so popular renditions would have us believe). Even Eugène Delacroix’s famous Marianne storming the Bastille is both the nation’s calling card and a paragon of the true French woman: accessorized, political, passionate and topless.

If you push past the cream puffery about French fashion, food and flair, you touch on an essential element here that’s hard-wired into the French cultural DNA. The writer Michèle Fitoussi hit the nail on the head when she said that her compatriots “have a keen sense of the brevity of time and the immediacy of pleasure.” In other words, the French still exalt the senses and prefer having a life over making a living – and lucky for them, their infrastructure of social benefits lets everyone do just that. Any threat to this infrastructure (which includes affordable health care and up to six weeks of paid vacation for everyone, irrespective of rank) sends millions to the streets with the same fury as Marianne, because these social benefits that support quality of life (and a sexy one, at that) are considered basic human rights, not luxuries.

Unlike the French, we Americans have a keen sense of the immediacy of the future and the brevity of pleasure, with a dollop of guilt and a Puritan undertow in the mix. If we read countless books about the French and flock to France, it's often in the hope of shedding that cultural baggage and living out the sensual attributes evoked in that proverbial “Je ne sais quoi.” But short of a revolution in this country (and who’s got time for that?) the differences between us and the French run deep. They're woven into the socio-cultural fabric of both countries that shapes us from birth.

Thus, no matter how distasteful it might be to see a “MacDo” under the Louvre or Jenny Craig in Paris, France will always maintain its distinct character.

Loved this NYT article.