Food supplies

France is funny: a good place to live, if you can afford it. Better food, better weather, nicer people... you know how it goes by now. But as I believe I have been hammering you with that fact, I can now talk about the other less pleasant parts of actually l i v i n g in France - they come with the package, and there is no way to escape from it!France is in the middle of the neo-crisis of which I’ll only talk about today - if you would make a comparison with for example the German economy there is one particular theme I am thinking of. Why is the German economy stable and the French one going under? As far as I see it, both countries have the same number of people living on the system (unemployed, longterm sickleaves, etc). In many cases many of them are making babies after babies while being long term unemployed nor do some of them have the wish to learn something, study or actually work - all this being financed by the German government. Claiming money because of social rights but forgetting that with rights duties also come. Employees work 35h in France and not 40h like in Germany. But we all do overtime to 40h anyway here. Are the Germans more productive? Not really. Both countries have the same numbers of good employees and lazy ones. When comparing exports and industries I can only see differences in the products. Both countries are successful and apparently they should have the same level and economical status. But France goes down and Germany stays up.Summarizing this to one factor would be too simple and naive, but I’m pretty sure there is something that makes a huge difference: food prices. In Germany every day food is quite accessible to everybody and prices are quite low, relatively speaking. Luxury food products are expensive (I know that’s why we call them luxury products) and can be found in specific stores. No luxury products in a supermarket. Cleaning products are cheaper in Germany than in France, even the French products themselves like L’Oreal, Garnier... you name it! It’s cheaper on the other side of the Rhine. Apparently some factories for french products are in Germany, which explains this weird fact. But on the French side of Europe I discovered that the everyday food is much more expensive while the luxury ones are cheaper in comparison. Not that buying a quality whisky is cheaper than a bad one but for example a bottle costing 70 Euros in Germany will be at 32 Euros in France. A less quality one will be at 12 Euros in Germany and 19 Euros in France. Frozen Salmon can be found at 2,50 Euros in Germany but for 5 Euros in France. You know what they say, the rich gets richer and the poor gets poorer. Under these circumstances it is understandable. Being rich in France is cheaper than to be rich in other countries because they can find cheaper products here. For the middle class life is harder as they have to work more to get the same level of life as their Teutonic neighbours. And the list could go on and on... France taxes the middle class heavily on what they have or want. Just as Portugal did and still continues doing. Germany taxes everybody also heavily but still finds a right(er) balance. As a result the crisis has not been felt as much in Germany as in other countries more relying on the trust of the “invisible hand” to save the day. Here in France people count their money with fear - fear of not having enough to finish the month in plus. But still they don’t abdicate to get the newest gadgets that the advertisment is bombarding us with every day. From another perspective, I can at the same time see people going around looking for fruits and vegetables and taking food from the trash that the open markets leave at the end of a business day. Some fight for it, others even bring a caddie to fill. And no, it is not only “poor” people as we usually depict them as that do their “trash tours”. It’s all kinds of persons. Society of the privileged and privileged France has a hard time for the less fortunate ones, it’s not as easy to go on as in Germany but it can still be ok if you reach a certain level of income. The middle class level is a bit higher in France than in Germany though you need to make more money to be considered part of the middle class, which obviously leads to that more people are in difficulties here. But one thing is certain: people are h a p p ie r here.