What are the French best at?

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Cabal

Technology, like nuclear technology.
For the rest it is a well kept secret that we have international companies doing quite well in the world. Those companies just avoid to mention that they are French.
Cap Gemini (information technology)
Total (petrol)
Carrefour (supermarkets)
EDF (Europe - power utility)
Sanofi Aventis (drugs)
and others.

If you're talking about the legend of the super lover, the French might be more romantic in their wooing, which is something ladies like a lot, this tends to add a certain luster to love.
For happiness, we love to grumble, and we do not have that mindset of creating happiness and all that belief of the need to build and develop your inner self at school. You're in school to work, you work to eat. You're lucky if you like your job but that is not a necessity. So we are probably more stressed than other people.

Rillifan: for curiosity's sake, what is the number of medals vs population. To me it is obvious that a country of 302 million inhabitants will win more medals than a country of 60 million.

Rilifan: doesn't change a thing, nor the fact that the US has more medals than France. I'm just curious about the ratio, that's all.

Austerlitz

@ john m : the French won WWI (at least-we won't begin the debate about WWII). And if you are american let me remind you that you arrived 1917 to help us so you are not the main responsible for the victory.

sunshine

I asked this to my friends in France, and most of them said that since they are "romantic" people, they are the best in bed. I didnt agree or disagree, but thats what my friends said anyway. I guess Id go with fashion though, because the French dress in style all the time. Everyone in France dresses really cool, unique..etc.. in my opinion.

Rose T

Food...preparing it, presenting it, enjoying it.

madonna_toller

- making good wine,cheese and food in general
- taking life from the sunny side
- nice music
- great comedians
- and last but not least: fantastic lovers

xiberotar

-Food
-Wine
-Fashion
-Aeronautics
-Nuclear power
-Trains
-Tourism
-Culture
-Submarines
-Health care system
-Medicine
-Romantism
-Handball
-Electronics
-Water distribution
-Architecture

...etc...

Keeping their identity.

The French are best at making the most of life's simple pleasures.

gogol

We get nearly every year most of Field medals - for mathematics - which are not awarded by a Nobel in particular -

We are the to financial mathematics authorities on all stockexchange activities -

We are among the best war plane makers -

Wer have the best computer engineering company of the world - Cap Gemini

We are among the major in medicament production

Our health system is the best of the world

As Ford Gm and Chrysler are dying, Peugeot is among the top world car techonologies -

otherwise feel all right, loose war, don't shave my armpitts, neglect soap, as other countries terrify the world withe their army - that's their last know-how

@edit for belated apes

Stabbing their friends in the back/. US are enemies

Gross interference in other nations affairs./ France invaded Irak

Surrendering to the enemy. / France mass-murdered in Hiroshima and Nagasaki - Iraki blocade = 2.000.000 casualties

Not bathing./ Obese cannot find sufficient baths

Allowing dog **** all over their cities./ Tourist crap not dog-****

Letting Muslims take over all their cities inner-cores. / muslims + 1.000.000 zionists

Being totally jealous of English being a world language./ and such a beautiful and concise language

Having women with hairy arm-pits, legs and crotches./french smell and US yeal - everywhere

Having the highest porportion of homosexual men in the world. having the highest proportion of US male visitors with VIH

Neil

Waiting in long lines every evening at a bakery shop.

zozo

FOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i agree with Rose T

qriste

well it's seems that we are good at hiding the s**t, when I read my compatriots telling about France, making people think that it's disneyland, that everything is free, that our health system is so wonderful, that if our unemployment is high it doesn't matter because we get good helps...they should stop deceiving people, no wonder many foreigners say that they want to move to France with all the fairy tales they hear, but I guess that those who actually come here see that it's not quite the reality.

Rillifane

Its an interesting group of answers which contains some interesting assertions.

1. John M says the French are good at losing World Wars when, in fact, the French were on the winning side in both World War I and World War II.

2. Jean V says the French are best at mathematics and cites the Field's Medal. I hate to burst your bubble Jean but Americans have won more Field's Medals than the French by a wide margin.

3. Madonna mentions "fantastic lovers" and je_t'aime_paris suggests the same but the fact is the Global Study of Sexual Attitudes and Behavior reveals that American men rate their degree of physical sexual pleasure at 72.9% and women 65% while the comparable numbers for the French are 61.2% for men and 51.7% for women. When evaluating overall satisfaction with sexual performance the Americans score 83.9 for men and 82.4 for women while the French score 85.2 for men and only 69.6 for women. (The survey involved 13,882 women and 13,618 men in 29 countries)

4. m'enfin?? makes a good point that the French and those of us who are unabashed Francophiles (I admit to being in this category) can sometimes overstate the positives while failing to mention the negatives. Further, I notice that when I do try to give a balance I receive a lot of what I take to be angry thumbs down ratings from the same group.

5. Several answers do mention things the French do very well but I am not sure they qualify as "the best." Even French wine often loses in international blind tasting to American wine and its arguable that while French cheese is generally much better than American there are a few artisanal American cheese makers who, at very least, are their equals. The best restaurant in the world is probably El Bulli restaurant in Roses on the Costa Brava and the best chef its owner Ferran AdriÃ .

As to Jean V's assertion concerning warplanes, I agree the French make very good ones but as a former arms salesman I assure him that the Americans make the best.

While the French health system is often ranked number one that ranking gives heavy weight to France's universal health care coverage. If money is no object then the best health care in the world. from a purely scientific view, is in the USA.

6. While the French often suggest that their choices in government and lifestyle, whatever their drawbacks, still make them happier than their American counterparts that may not be the case. In fact according to Stefan Bergheim of Deutsche Bank Research the French are considerably less happy than Americans (or Britons and Australians).

EDIT@Cabal How would answering that question change the fact that the assertion that France has won "the most" Field Medals" is wrong? I was under the impression that facts and precision in language are the French way.

High Life

kissing
food
they are sooo cool

John M

losing world wars

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