14,084 people, really?

Insane, right? That doesn't happen in Third World countries.

you muzzzerr...are you trying to cause another blackout here?

Quick! Put grand-mère on ice!

Hey Frenchie!

Yeah, but I would suspect that folks in third-world nations have developed coping strategies.

What the French need now is not our pity. What they need is box fans by the hundreds.

If the French Government did anything for the old people that would be godless socialism and you'd condemn it wouldn't you?

No because they're socialists now. At least then they'd be socialists with thousands less dead old people.

ll, that's hilarious.

If the French Government did anything for the old people that would be godless socialism and you'd condemn it wouldn't you?

While people like you and the French may need the government to do this, the rest of us don't. We have the common decency to check up on our neighbors during a nautural disaster.

At home (Grenoble) during the day its 36 degrees celsius and it will hit 40 no problem. In our garage at nidnight its 24. no idea what that is in farenheit.

ll,
have you ever been to nyc?

It's not even about your neighbors, as ll points out, it's actually family. All the young French go to the south in the summer and leave grandma to rot in the 5th floor walk-up. The huge number dead shows not just a lack of civic duty but actually lack of family values, to dig up that old Newt phrase (not to mention lack of basic technology).

Not Dawn Summers:

Why do you ask?

All those people died because so many French people coulnd't tear themselves away from their precious August vacations to go back and check on their elderly relatives.

What was just as bad, was that many of the elderly victims lay in makeshift morgues (body bags filled with ice) for quite some time before their remains were ever claimed.

Will you stop your anti-French tirade? You make me sick. The 15,000 figure or 20,000 or whatever the figure may be is a guess. It is basically saying - well normally we'd expect X number of people to die but in actual fact X number + 15,000 died.
The following year was marked by less births and less deaths than normal.

You want all us euros to get air-conditioning and raise oil another $20/barrel? I mean it wont bother the French they will just increase their nuclear power stations a little more.

Karol - the fact French people live FIVE years longer than Americans should make YOU YANKS hang YOUR heads in shame. Perhaps you rich capitalists could pay for health care?

As for family values. Do Americans live close to their family? Seems very old-fashioned. And of course it doesnt happen in the "Third world" - people are already dead.

If you wanna get one-up on the French. I suggest you try harder. And criticising based on old people dying is poor form.

Finally, the heatwave in France 2 years ago was 110-115F. They've been having 95Fs in Paris for a cpl weeks now.

Yes, a bunch of people died--true, but the French bashing is tiresome, and even ridiculous. You're not going to find a more tireless defender of untramelled capitalism then myself but, come on, the French are one of the wealthiest nations in the world. They are tech innovators, and they enjoy an extraordinary standard of living, rivaled by just a handful of nations.

It's like nobody wants to admit that despite their being "socialist!" they're actually very well off, which either suggests that socialism isn't so bad, or their not as socialist as everyone would like to believe.

Yeah, they've got some screwy labor regulations--ok, really bad, but if you've spent time in France, and know how the French people live (which I assume you do), you've gotta be impressed with that place. And that, unfortunately, applies to all of the "socialist" countries of Western Europe"

I just did a little back of the envelope research on heatwave deaths comparing the french heat wave to the famous 1995 heatwave in the city of Chicago.

Turns out, according to the best estimates, that 700 more people died during the week of July 14-20, 1995 than would be expected, or approximately .025% of the population. In france, assuming the generous number of 14,000 deaths, as a percentage of the population it is only %.023 less than the rate of Chicago. Now some may quibble with the comparison of a dense urban area like Chicago, to the Nation of France, and I'll grant you some leeway.
But I'd say a few things

1) France, like all of Western Europe is a very dense place, most of the country is probably poorer than the city of Chicago.

2) It's a relatively small country in size, so unlike the US, a heat wave could engulf the entire country. Hell, a heat wave could engulf all of Western Europe.

3) France just doesn't get that hot usually, so it's not surprising that people were unprepared. Chicago, and I know cause I used to live there, has to deal with this shit every year, to it's less acceptable.

4) Just cause Mayor Daley's a democrat, doesn't make the city a "People's Republic"

That's funny, I have spent time in France and did not find it to be happy or wealthy at all. I'm not trying to 'bash' the French here, but isn't it a little ridiculous that even the Louvre, with some of the most amazing pieces of art ever made, does not have air conditioning. How is that technologically advanced?

According to the CIA, the GDP per capita in France is around $28,000, putting them pretty high up there. Furthermore, to cite one old building, and use that as evidence that the country isn't technologically advance, is, well, obviously absurd.

I can think of several tech companies from France that have done well, and they're telecommunications system is, like the rest of Europe's, obviously superior to ours.

That's hilarious. The Lourve is just some old building. Try saying that in France.

So, a western country letting thousands of its people die in such a preventable way is ok? And criticizing them for it means that I'm bashing them?

No, of course it's not ok that so many people died, but the problem is not unique to France. As advanced as nations become they still find themselves susceptible to the extremeties of the elements.

It was only bashing because of you were singling out a country for letting something happen, that happens here.

And besides, you don't have a problem with French Bashing, do you?

p.s. I couldn't care less what the French think, I've got no love for them at all--the louvre is just some old building to me.

I hate to do the 'some of my best friends are...' but one of my best friends in the world is Senagalese French, lives in Paris, and I've got no problem with French people who don't have a problem with me. I've been there 3 times and have gotten harrassed/groped/yelled at for being American and still I can't hate France.

I just saw that comment on Chicago (you'll notice my next post was at the exact same time so I didn't see it). The numbers are skewed. Most of the deaths that happened in France happened in Paris, a city of about 2.15 million (even if you take ALL the surrounding suburbs it's only 10 million and most of the deaths occured in the city of Paris proper). Chicago's population is nearly 3 million. The numbers just aren't comparable. What happened in Chicago is a tragedy, of course, but on a much, much smaller scale. What happened in France isn't just a tragedy, it's negligence.

According to WHO, the August 2003 heat wave led to 14,802 deaths in Frogistan. 11,435 of those deaths occurred in the first two weeks of the crisis. The heatwave caused an 130% increase in deaths in Paris compared to a 20% increase in rural areas. Even though they were well aware of the crisis, frogistani officials did not respond until the 13th day. Also noted as a contributor were preexisting problems in the frogistani health care system. Considering that this has occurred before, 4700 in 1983, the frogistanis should have had a disaster plan in place. While deaths will occur during heat waves in any country, they were disproportionately high in Frogistan.

The other day on nightly news show "Le Journal" (WLIW, Ch. 25) a French politician said that French people work 30% less than their American counterparts and enjoy a standard of living that is more than 30% lower, imagine that.

As for the heat wave, French officials came under fire for not dealing with the humanitarian crisis in its own country (France is known for ignoring humanitarian crises in other countries) and one minister continued his vacation despite the fact that the number of French-speaking people plummeted at a faster rate than usual.

The French society today is work averse and welfare happy.

Oh, and by the way, the French take care of their elderly relatives about 30% less of the time, too.

"What's that? Nana has no air conditioning? Let her have one of the handheld fans I bought on the Costa del Sol"

French GDP is $37000, US is $41000. Please do not use PPP as a measure of GDP unless you wish to discuss the ability to buy absolute goods (e.g a ferrari). The CIA is wrong to use PPP.

Anyway the average French person probably works 50pc less than the average American, when you account for unemployment and holidays, plus the working weeks and unpaid overtime. And in Monetary terms there's less than a 10pc GDP difference. It is in PPP that there's about a 30% difference. But PPP neglects so much and is a dodgy (at best) measure of living standards, designed to favour more capitalistic societies.

As for Chicago: I bet it has air-conditioning. Any place that cold in winter and that hot in summer is better designed. Also Paris is an old city with a lot of old building stock and French people are OLDER than Americans in Chicago who die younger - FIVE YEARS as life expectancy - and retire to Florida. I'm not saying the French are blameless and weren't a little slow to react but when you consider George Bush sat through the WTC attacks in a classroom (assuming Micky Mouse Moore was accurate), it isn't exactly an American trait to react quickly either.