Generalizations about entire nations, and about the French in particular, are tiresome and usually trite. The French are incredibly successful at producing ver

Generalizations about entire nations, and about the French in particular, are tiresome and usually trite. The French are incredibly successful at producing very smart people, whom they have exported to other economies for the last several decades, at least since the end of les trente glorieuses, or the post-War boom. French quants are famous on Wall Street and in London. Two of the most prominent researchers in deep learning, my field, are French: Yann LeCun and Yoshua Bengio. (Interestingly, they both pursued careers in North America.) The author seems to be referring to philosophy when using the word "thought". Philosophy, like most of the humanities, is having a hard time in many countries besides France, so any analysis of its decline in France should examine transnational trends in university funding, department enrollment and the job prospects of philosophy majors, among other factors. France has been in gentle decline for about 200 years, since Napoleon returned defeated from Moscow. They have not won a single war since then (spare me the air raids on Tripoli...). Their inability to conquer on the ground means they have exercised less and less influence in the world, despite having nuclear weapons and a seat on the security council. As an economy, they have slipped to 6th-largest GDP -- and third in Europe after the UK and Germany. No one talks about the death of German thought. French was once on the language of diplomacy, but it's been on the wrong side of history even in the EU, where the accession of Sweden, Norway and Finland in the mid-90s made English much more important. At home, the French have done little to renew their society or their elite, which is dominated by the alumni of a few elite schools. While Americans are aware of the ossified class structure of Great Britain, they remain largely ignorant of similar rigidities in France. But France is bad at helping its citizens realize their potential, and very good at employing bureaucrats to tell them "non." If they want better thinkers, they only have to look at the ridiculous layers of exclusion that they have built for themselves. Until they fix it, the best talent will surely flee.