Agreed, I would argue it’s more dangerous for people to be saying “oh look how bad US is, at least we’re not like that”, because it makes people complacent.

Never mind the fact that Steve Bannon is friends with Marine Le Pen; it’s the same fascists making both countries worse. CNews acts like a copy of Fox News in the US. There is the same issue with conspiracy theories, covid denials, and populism. People attacking doctors, conspiracies about birth/c-section, not wanting to vaccinate children. All of these things are the same in both countries and seem like signs that people don’t trust institutions and are vulnerable to dangerous misinformation.

I’m thinking of a tiktok I saw a while ago (@itsminikay) of a tour guide in Paris who is originally from India. She made a post (4/29) about how she’d been assigned a group of midwesterners from the US and was struck by how lively and sunny her interactions were with them. She was nearly giddy with happiness about how pleasant the small talk had been with them.

In a follow-up post, she explained that she hadn’t realized how much of her natural personality and small talk skills that were part of her everyday life in India had been dimmed and suppressed after six years of living in Paris. Simply because Northern Europeans are more restrained in their casual interpersonal interactions.

There are very strict gender norms in France. The type of woman who is celebrated in France is one who is a certain narrow (and not very achievable) stereotype of womanhood: beautiful, capable, cool; in general, expectations that there is a certain “image” of an acceptable woman. Of course there is no such equivalent for men to be accepted in society.

North American-style feminism is not seen positively and even the word “feminism” is used as a pejorative and progressive French women avoid using it. There’s a cultural issue with men not respecting women’s personal space or assuming it’s okay to touch them or not believing the woman who says they’re not interested. It’s very clear in North America that bosses shouldn’t make a move on their subordinates, but France is reluctant to see that as an issue.

Also the french women who try to draw attention to this inequality in the workplace and society are publicly derided by both men and women. There’s a cultural attachment to the stereotypical ideal French woman and not everyone is convinced that she is bad for society.

If you want to learn more about French gender issues, this webcomic is a famous one (translated here into English but originally in France): https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/26/gender-wars-household-chores-comic

This song is by a Belgian singer but it sparked a LOT of conversation in France. The title is a play on “balance ton porc”, which was the French hashtag version of #MeToo.

I also highly recommend the documentary “Room 2806: The Accusation” for Americans who aren’t familiar with French culture around gender. It’s about a French man who was accused of sexually assaulting a hotel worker in NYC, but it spends a lot of time explaining the complicated and conflicting relationship that French society has with feminism, and directly contrasts that with American culture of gender norms. We have a society that strives for gender equality whereas France’s does not.