call it whatever you will...a rose by any other name...clearly there is more of a socialistic tendency to the French government than to the United States government. clearly there is more of a paternalistic nature to the government in that country than there is here. so if we're going to dole out blame for all the events of our lives as Americans on the US government...then the French government deserves it in larger measure in this circumstance.
so if we're going to dole out blame for all the events of our lives as Americans on the US government... Except that we don't do that. We have a habit of looking at events and deciding whether things are really a government issue. For example, no one blamed the heat-related Chicago deaths on our government because we don't look at it as the governments' job to provide air conditioning for people, or to go door-to-door to ensure that elderly people aren't by themselves in an apartment suffering from heat exhaustion. I don't think the French see it as the government's job to do that either.
Sure, the government deserves some blame for its reaction, but not because it is socialist (since it isn't - and that is not to say the socialists would have had no deaths...who knows). Chirac has accepted some (which is amazing) and says the country needs to show more solidarity, the PM says the government has nothing to do with it... It is true that the French government is more paternalistic and they do have programs to take care of the homeless and elderly in the winter...I guess since they have never had to deal with a summer like this they never planned for it. Anyway, my main point was with the article and not you...that the government is not socialist. giddy, Relative to be sure (and there are more conservative-leaning parties in France). I just find it ironic that conservatives in the US are criticizing the "socialist" government in France for the deaths and the socialists in France are criticizing their "conservative" government for the deaths. See, US conservatives and French socialists are the same!
99.9% of homes in the rest of the world DO NOT have a/c! We are blessed with abundant money & abundant energy - something the rest of the world is sorely lacking. A/c is a luxury we here, especially in the shouth, take for granted. A/cers are butt-expensive even in Europe, most of the homes do not have insulation, and mounting an a/cer is a major task.
Some interesting updates: The French government blames the 35 hour work week! That was a law enacted by the Socialists, right? http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030818/ap_on_re_eu/france_heat_wave_3 Also- The New York Times reports on the 10,000 heat-related deaths in France: [M]any elderly people were left behind by vacationing [French] families. Some, ... informed of the death of relatives, postponed funerals so as not to interrupt the Aug. 15 holiday weekend, leaving the bodies in the refrigerated hall. Then again, is it really the government's fault? "Since most heat related deaths are due to dehydration, what was the government supposed to do, force people to drink more water? What rational person would expect the government to protect them from the weather? A person who has been raised in a socialist state, that's who. People in socialist societies are conditioned to believe the government will take care of their health care, their jobs, their pensions, their utilities, etc. Just look at the chaos that ensued when France tried to enact modest pension reforms. And since France has socialized medicine, it is not a big leap for their citizens to view deaths related to the weather as being the fault of the government." http://www.rocketmanblog.blogspot.com
I have an internation channel on my cable system, and I was watching the French news one night during the heat wave crisis when it was first getting bad, and the report did note that it was hard for the hospitals to care for the sheer number of heat stroke patients because they were very understaffed because so many people were on their traditional August vacations. But while that particularly may have caused some problems in administering care early on, the report said they were calling hospital staffers back to work to deal with the crisis. But that was something I had never thought of because I didn't consider that hospital workers would also be going on holiday during August like much of the rest of the country. I just found that interesting, not an indictment of socialism. And, as for air conditioning, considering the normal temperatures in France, I could see why most people wouldn't have it. When I lived in Connecticut, there were a large number of people who didn't have A/C, and it didn't seem uncomfortable because it just didn't get all that hot. Of course, here in Dallas, I'm quite sure that if my apartment didn't have A/C, I wouldn't be able to survive here for long. The A/C I do have struggles (struggle being a relative term) to fight the 100+ heat some days.
Crime rate due to capitalism? SARS due to communism? Genocide due to fanatacism? Sweeping generalization blah blah blah due to -ism? Boring.
During the Tour de France this year, the race was slowed down by a protest. According the the race commentators, the protesters were artists who weren't happy with the amount of money the government gave them to live on. They wanted more money so they could be artists and not have to get jobs that paid better but would make them work harder. It's a little off topic but it is about France!
Great Post Samfisher, I am reading this thread and cannot believe it. We had a rash of old people dying in a heat wave in Chicago just a few years ago. The reason: because they weren't used to the heat. Its that simple. Nothing to see here, move on.
The people that died in Chicago (the quote I heard recently was 700) from heat-related illnesses were predominately old people without AC, just like in France. They mostly lived alone and many were afraid to open windows for fear of being burglarized, exacerbating the problem. It seems to me that the heat wave in France was just like the Chicago heat wave in kind, and varied only in degree. Obviously, that it happened during the peak vacation month made things worse yet in France. I suppose the people in Chicago that neglected their elderly parents all the time so they were afraid to open their windows are better than the kids in France who happened to be out of town. But, I'm letting the French off too easy here. I think it is stupid to say that the French practice of vacationing in the summer is bad and that, as a result, socialism is bad (I recently had a project here at work (in the USA) seriously crippled because so many key people were vacationing). But, France suffers from a familial fragmentation that made this event less than surprising to me. I don't think its root is socialist, though socialism and fragmentation may stem from the same cause. The scary part is, it seems the US is heading in the same direction.
Mr. Clutching at straws, first of all, France is not a socialist country, second of all, this thread idea is one of the weirdest I have seen in a while... But at least it caused this gem from johnheath: Nice to see people having the ability to be a bit self-ironic .
What's funny is that the French ARE blaming the government. They aren't saying "it's because of the heat." They are saying- "Why doesn't our socialist government protect us???" The question is- does socialism make societies less caring and cohesive? I can't see this happening in a very capitalist country. And yet, we are supposed to be the cold, greedy ones.
Interesting post. I would bet a more active central government does have a direct correlation with a familial fragmentation. It is hard to measure "familial framentation" however.
Just let me defend myself for a bit and say that I actually posted this from another website. I know how much this site loves France, so I decided to post it.
France does not have a sovialist rule at the moment, do the?? I don´t think so. The president ain´t socialist anyway.
Though I´m not very familiar with France I would say a more probable cause is France changing from socialist rule to some right party ruling. This then resulted in less health care personell, or privatized hospitals interested in profit, not helping people.
Come on now. Do you honestly think a few years of "right party ruling" would change anything in France? Their right wing leaders just aren't very right wing. It's their system we are talking about. And the government is blaming the 35 hour work week, a socialist idea.
