You're right. Paris does suck in many ways. And I know the smaller cities have their charms. But none of them prove the points of the authors, that French are b

You're right. Paris does suck in many ways. And I know the smaller cities have their charms. But none of them prove the points of the authors, that French are better at parenthood, weight control and seduction. None. We have to try to compare apples to apples with the supermarkets. Monop and Inno are actually at the high end, so you should compare them to Whole Foods or Safeway and you can't compare it to the downmarket chains. And in that case, Whole Foods wins on variety, freshness and health by a long shot, while also beating sparsely stocked places like Naturalia. Downmarket chains in the US, like Walmart, might be compared to Ed, Champion or the German invaders Aldi and Lidl. And the shopping there is not pretty. Most of the food is processed. France hides a lot of inequality, so I'm not sure we know it's true measure there. There's a much stronger habit of offshoring one's wealth to places like Switzerland and Monaco (and sure, the US uses the Caymans, but w/e). The rural poverty and alcoholism is pretty bad. Sequestering the immigrant populations in the high-rises of the banlieues is pretty bad. Many people have a problem finding even one job, let alone two, and they are physically isolated from the rest of the economy. Homelessness in Paris was actually pretty visible when I was there, in the tent cities around the Canal St. Martin for example. And it wasn't just Afghan migrants, but people that France itself had produced, who had no home. And when you get out of Paris, you can still see shantytowns of tarp and trailers shoved between the freeways. Happy to concede that French children get more vegetables. I hope that's true.