French here. > It's also a cultural problem: enjoying ourself have been more important that savings. It looks like the reason you have 0 saving is because you

French here. > It's also a cultural problem: enjoying ourself have been more important that savings. It looks like the reason you have 0 saving is because you... simply refuse to save money and spend it all on leisure instead? (after necessities are met). > But there is also another issue: individualism. The thing is, most of us could probably find 500 € to give away. But the solidarity is not strong enough for this effort. What do you mean by individualism? That one should value individual rights such as freedom of speech, respect of individual property etc? Sounds to me like many freedoms are going away in France and civil liberties are always at risk. On the other hand, collective rights keep expending and these are extremely costly. When it comes to coerced solidarity, France sure is one of the world's champion. It seems to me that the reason you and your friends refuse to give to your friend is not because of too much individualism but because of too much collectivism, you are already paying so much in tax to support these solidarity policies that you are left with little money for your own leisure, let alone for your friends and you feel like you've already paid "your fair share" by outsourcing charity and solidarity to the State. But of course, as usual all problems in France are blamed on individualism and capitalism instead of the elephant in the room: the unfettered collectivism going on.