In response to recent columns by Thomas Friedman : Being French, I am an enemy of the United States of America. I am also an ugly protectionist; I have delusion of past grandeur; and I live in a failed state with an overregulated economy and closed borders. We have a totally outdated system that is not even a system after all, and certainly not social. I am unemployed, like everybody else here, but I live in comfort by retrieving benefits from the bankrupt welfare state. I am not looking for a job because I would be too afraid to find one. I am ashamed when I read Friedman’s column with religious fervour in copies of the International Herald Tribune that are left behind by American tourist in Paris. I can only hope that my country will soon embrace globalization, the American economic model and adopt English as its mother tongue and the US dollar as a currency. When I see the benefits of an American invasion elsewhere, I also wish that the United States could send a few divisions here (we shall surrender immediatly if we are not on a long weekend) and occupy France until it is purged of its socialist mentality and its encroached racism and anti-semitism. Friedman could write a new constitution in which our daughters would be required to do their homework so that Indian and Chinese little boys and girls do not pinch their jobs in the future.
Alas, I know that America’s war machine has been too busy lately. I wish the United States every success, but knowing that America wont’t be able to come and rescue us anytime soon, my family and I have decided that we shall commit suicide by eating cheese without any wine until we die. Maybe this will set an example and the French will reform by themselves.
Published by the International Herald Tribune , dated Saturday-Sunday, July 2-3, 2005