Vive La France!

We should adopt the 35 hour work week. Or at least have siesta. We'd probably be less stressed out, and less wont to gun people down.

French front-runner’s American style

Sarkozy leads the polls despite his flagrant Yankee Doodlism

'PARIS - He urges young people to embrace Martin Luther King Jr. as a role model. He is a devotee of Hollywood movies, and his favorite author is Ernest Hemingway. He wrote a book preaching the gospel of the American work ethic to a nation that clings to a 35-hour workweek.

None of which may seem remarkable, except that the man in question -- Nicolas Sarkozy -- is running for president of France, which typically turns up its nose at such flagrant displays of Yankee Doodlism. And he is leading in all the polls.

"I don't see why my country doesn't take inspiration from its great ally," Sarkozy, former interior minister and now candidate of the ruling Union for a Popular Movement, wrote in his recently updated political autobiography. "I love the value Americans place on work and the desire for excellence that you find everywhere."'