The society of mistrust: how the French social model is self-destructing.

Summary "France is caught in a vicious circle with considerable economic and social costs. For more than twenty years, surveys conducted in all developed countries have shown that here, more than anywhere else, people distrust their fellow citizens, the public authorities and the market. This distrust goes hand in hand with a more frequent lack of civic-mindedness, and yet distrust and lack of civic-mindedness, far from being immutable cultural traits, are fueled by the corporatism and statism of the French social model. In turn, the lack of trust among the French hinders their ability to cooperate, which leads the state to regulate everything and to empty social dialogue of its content. By comparing the relationship between economic performance and social attitudes in some thirty countries from the early 1950s to the present, Yann Algan and Pierre Cahuc show how this lack of confidence significantly reduces employment, growth and, above all, the French people's ability to be happy." [Source: 4th cover].