Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong

Résumé : The French... _ smoke more cigarettes, drink more alcohol and eat more fat than anyone in the world, yet have fewer heart problems and half the obesity rate of the British. _ work 35-hours weeks, and take seven weeks of paid holidays per year, but are still the world's fifth-biggest economic power. So what makes the French so different ? From a distance, modern France looks like a riddle. Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong shows how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together. Approaching France like a pair of anthropologists, authors Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow use anecdotes and observations, history, political analysis and reflection to uncover the French national character, offering a fresh take on a country that no one seems to understand. Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong is a journey into the French heart, mind, and soul. Deciphering French ideas about land, food, privacy and language, Nadeau and Barlow weave together the threads of French society - from centralization and the Napolenoic Code to élite education and even street protests - giving us, for the first time, a complete picture of the French.