The French see their country as a wonderful land that everyone wants to come to. It isn’t. According to journalist Felix Marquardt, it’s “a decrepit, overcentralised gerontocracy” that the young people of France should get out of as soon as they get a chance. Why stay in a land that for 30 years has tolerated a 25% youth unemployment rate, where “the rising generation can’t expect to rise to anything”. Far better to go abroad, find work and learn how other nations operate, as suggested by Angela Merkel, who advised the eurozone’s 3.6 million young unemployed to move around the EU as the rules allow. (inspired by an anti-French rant in the New York Times entitled “Get out of this decrepid nation if you can”).

Yes, frustration may play into the hands of the French far right. And yes, Paris is becoming like New York and London (the traffic!). On the other hand, France is still a wonderful country. The countryside is glorious (kept like it at a cost), the villages are still charming, the food superb, and the culture civilised. I dare say The French will have to work harder, longer, and be more entrepreneurial, but the loss of French culture would be an international tragedy. And why should they not hang on to their own approach to movie making if they want to? A natural Epicurean country in both senses of the word ( most of the time).

Go away, nanny, and stop pushing people around (I am addressing the NYT).