May 17, 2009
French household debt is half that in America, no bank has failed, none has been nationalized, executive pay is reasonable, and “the income gap between the top 10 percent and the bottom 10 percent is far smaller than in Britain or America.” The country is crisscrossed by 230-mph TGV trains, 80 percent of the power is nuclear (and more is exported), its auto producers are in reasonably good shape, Air France is the most profitable airline in the world, and French-dominated Airbus sells more planes than Boeing.