By Camille Christophel (January 20, 2004)

Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong is the title of a new book by Jean Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow. It came out in 2003 and follows Nadeau’s and Barlow’s footsteps in France.

This couple, from Quebec, are French speakers who decided to leave their country and examine the French people who "work 35-hour weeks, take seven weeks of paid holidays per year, never pick up after their dogs, smoke, drink and eat more fat than anyone in the world, yet live longer and have fewer heart problems than Americans."

The authors received dozens and dozens of guests at home to speak about France. "We ate with friends, invited them for dinner, tried new restaurants, helped them move into new houses, supported them through job losses and personal crises, cycled, hiked and shopped with them. Our guests-friends were Holocaust survivors, single-mother nurses, auto mechanics, accountants, lawyers, architects, graduate students, hospital employees, engineers and more," wrote the authors.

They have lived France, eaten France, slept France, dreamt France, cried France. They tell us about their feelings, about their French experiences through 23 chapters.

Among others things, the book contains chapters titled, "Algeria: The Unacknowledged War," "Dogs, Towns and Local Government," "Strong Language," "The World According to France," "The Meaning of Europe," and "Elite Education."

They give a complete picture of France, with its habits, its areas, its troubles, its history, its lands, and its thoughts. Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong is a journey into the country that is the world’s fourth-biggest economic power.

"We didn’t move to France to renovate a house in Provence. What we are trying to do is renovate some ideas," wrote the authors. They did. Nadeau and Barlow have begun their stay with a neutral point of view about racism’s climb in France, to the elections of 2002 and to the well-known generality.

"For some reason we judge the French according to our own models, whether we are observing French business practices or social customs. In fact, the French have political and social reflexes that are absolutely alien to North Americans; their structures are built on those reflexes," write the authors.

They found out with surprise, that French people are not just rude, charming, or having ideas against democracy. The writers have call their thoughts and themselves into question.

"North Americans admire French culture, but when it comes to service in stores and other mysterious French ways, they really wonder why the French just can’t be like them," they write.

The book’s great introduction offers in a few pages, these two foreigners’ point of view, such as the following:

About Paris; "You only get to see inside if Parisians decide to let you in. And they only let you in when they know who you are." 

About the extreme right party; "There is probably a good 15 percent of the population in the United States or Canada that is also xenophobic, isolationist, and who would gladly vote for a law-and-order party if there was one."

About their French journey; "On our first trip we found ourselves in the middle of a comic book festival in Angouleme. We attended an agricultural salon that turned out to be a window to French food. We rowed in the canals of the Marais Poitevin, near La Rochelle, and ski trekked across the Alps. We listened to Franco-Arabic rai music in Marseille."

This book tells with accuracy and humor the country’s life, proud to be the first European power. This book is a real study of customs, people and culture in 340 pages; a very pleasant to read, to eat up with eyes. This book is not just intended to French lovers; those who enjoy learning about the others countries will be delighted.

Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong," by Jean Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow, published by SourceBooks, Inc. On sale in bookstores, in travel essay, for $16.95