No. But she has been trained to use a teleprompter PROPERLY. And I know how she learnt…
But France provides tertiary education for everybody that passes their bac (ie. most pupils), and wants to go to uni, so that doesn’t explain the difference between the 2 countries.
I genuinely don’t know the answer to my question. I know taxes are higher in France - but not much higher, at least on average earnings. I know the French state is much, much bigger - over half of the whole economy - which I suspect allows for big efficiencies. I also guess France has more realistic spending priorities, focused on things like health, education and public transport.
What’s interesting is that for years, going back to the 1980s - and until really quite recently - the anglo-saxon press has been saying that France’s higher tax, bigger-state, highly regulated economy was heading for the rocks. Turns out, the rocks all along lay in the UK’s low-tax, small-state direction.
It’s interesting - France has more students (2.9million vs 2.66) as well. Though it does have a slightly higher tax revenue of just over 1T€ in 2019 compared with about 728B€ for the UK - I guess having almost 300 billion more euros to spend does allow one to afford a better education system.
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It’s mad to privatise infrastructure. I just wish that SKS would promise to renationalise rail, water, electricity, gas and the NHS.
Impossibly expensive after years of neglect, of course.
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I have heard this said before Geof, and don’t dispute it but can only state my own experience. I have never paid a penny in tax while working here and even once got a rebate, granted my earnings were less too, but nothing to pay at all?
Also, in the past almost 20 years of retirement on 5 English and 2 French pensions, nothing to pay either.
But, despite being 17 years out of the UK tax system, one year the taxman instructed my UK company pension payer to take £100 in tax for that year. Then, when I protested and they admitted their mistake, before I got it back, they took another £100. I got the whole £200 back a bit later but my point is that I crossed the UK threshold on our joint UK 5 pensions but not the French threshold on all 7. Doesn’t sound like higher income tax in France to me.
However I am hoping the 2 diesel cars I have (totally isolated if one is off the road) will see me out, I can’t afford to buy an electric car but that doesn’t make me a
Ah - a fossil-fuel dinosaur !
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Not really , I just prefer to be debt free 
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That was a joke in response to @Flocreen 's ‘real car’ mischief David - I completely understand that electric cars are harder to afford (up front - though lower running cost can quickly make up the difference - also worth keeping an eye on the government subsidies in France if you have an old-ish diesel - more schemes on the way - worth signing up for the Ministère de l’Économie et des Finances ‘bercy-infos’ newsletter - Bercy infos Particuliers | economie.gouv.fr).
But I agree with you on tax. Although we did pay a bit more when we moved here than we had been paying in the UK, our increased benefits - particularly the more-than-tripling of our family allowance - more than made up for the difference, so we too were net better off.
This is what is always ignored in the UK media reporting of high tax in France - it’s only high if you are relatively wealthy, because even middle-range earners can be net beneficiaries of a more progressive system, with higher tax but higher benefits directed towards those that need them most. ie. France still has a functioning welfare state.
I tell everybody that will listen, if they have children in the UK likely to want to go to university, to move to France if they possibly can, because they will have saved literally £100,000s by the time their studies have finished.
But given the mess UK utilities, railways, etc, have got into - can it afford NOT to re-nationalise them?
Also bear in mind that the ‘cost’ of nationalisation, and investment in improvements, is no simple matter (this was the argument of Labour under Corbyn). Assuming you buy or invest wisely, there is no loss of value - no overall impact on public finances - since the assets you then possess are equal in value to the money you’ve spent.
Which is why I added the 
that you didn’t. . I agree with @Flocreen’s latest too:
I just prefer to be debt free
At my time of life, so do I. 
Oh I’m far too old-fashioned to look at those smilies or emoticons or whatever they are David !
I see them rather like emergency flashers on cars - maybe useful in extremis, but much of the time just an excuse for illegal parking !
Its difficult to get the timing right when being a flasher on a car,hand coat coordination problems .
seven smilies so you’ll know its a joke.
I heard David Lamy on the radio this morning and what he said summed things up completely.
‘What was Sunak thinking appointing both Braveman and Williamson knowing that they had both been sacked for various very good reasons, and who in their right mind would give this person a knighthood?’
Apparently Boris Johnson. Say no more. 
He wasn’t thinking, he was doing what the ERG instructed.
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Yes exactly, the price of fending off Johnson as PM. If you can’t get the job clean, you ain’t fit for the job.
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I find that remark quite shocking.
Not altogether surprising, it is not uncommon for some who themselves are looked down upon to look down on others, a bit like the 2 Ronnies’ sketch with John Cleese.
I had a Black East African girlfriend in England many years ago, and she was very black, but she couldn’t stand West Indians at all and thought they were the lowest form of life. I eventually got tired of guiding conversations away from the subject.
If it was a case of them being generally of a lighter hue, I began to wonder what she really thought of pale old me. 
well basically, as someone once said, we’re all pink on the inside
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