4 ms·

Although the French fondness for printable documents can be very annoying (it can be a lot of work, all that printing and scanning!), it is nice that it makes b

by brnt 5y ago

Although the French fondness for printable documents can be very annoying (it can be a lot of work, all that printing and scanning!), it is nice that it makes building your own archive simple. I now live in the NL, and while digitalisation here is advanced and generally not much work, I find it hard to document communication with the government (or business) consistently. Dutch folk are so weary of paperwork that asking for a copy for your own administration (and this has benefitted me countless times so I'm not quitting that habit) usually gets you surprised and/or annoyed frowns.

mytailorisrich 5y ago
Really, it's the French administration's fondness for paperwork. During the Covid lockdowns people were allowed to go out for a number of specific reasons, like in most countries. Of course the French administration decided that this required people to fill a specific form to select the reason, to sign the form (along with name, date and place of birth, address, date of time person left home), and to carry it with them in case police stopped them... After some time they did deploy an electronic version (on smartphones, but that's still a form) but it's the very idea of doing something like that that is symptomatic of the mindset.
- brnt 5y ago
  > Really, it's the French administration's fondness for paperwork. French business isn't any different in my experience.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  Where does this regressive mindset come from do you think?
- oever 5y ago
  So people carried as many filled in forms as there were reasons on the form?
  - donatzsky 5y ago
    No, you were allowed to select more than one reason, but you did have to make a new one each time you went out.
- BiteCode_dev 5y ago
  On the plus side, they could implement it in few days while waiting for the phone version to be up. Businesses could print it for grandmas and hobos that were limited tech wise. Paper has advantages.
  - mytailorisrich 5y ago
    Sure, but the 'madness' is to require this in the first place because, really, it serves no purpose (apart from allowing to prosecute people for perjury on top of fining them for breaking lockdown). That's the point re. love of French administration for paperwork and forms.
  - BrandoElFollito 5y ago
    And during these few days they created a paper that was barely understandable. Luckily we had the news at 20:00 with an everyday FAQ related to that. This was literally a piece of paper, but they managed to make it difficult to understand. On the other hand, I must say that the police is human here as well and when you had almost the right papers and obviously were not trying to play the system they were very understanding (at least where I live)
BrandoElFollito 5y ago
I find that the digitalised approach makes it much easier to document and reference exchanges. France traditionally required a letter (un petit courrier), you got weeks later a paper response and so on. If you did not get a response, your letter may have been "lost" (where, it is a mystery). At least now with the integrated messaging system on some govt platforms you have a trace. What we are missing is integration. Each entity has their own system, with their own messages. We have a common login system at last (France Connect) but it is not a unified identity system (just a way to use one of the 5 or 6 "official" systems to connect to a new application). Then you have the problem of answers: you send an email, and receive a letter. To which you cannot reply back. When I look at countries such as Estonia or Poland, I envy their digital approach. Poland for instance has an app that will download all your key information: id card, driving license, the car papers, your visits to the doctor, the drugs prescriptions, the medical results - everything. Of course, if this is hacked it is a problem but I would like to have at t least the possibility. In France I have to have a huge pile of papers for everything.

by brnt 5y ago

mytailorisrich 5y ago

Really, it's the French administration's fondness for paperwork. During the Covid lockdowns people were allowed to go out for a number of specific reasons, like in most countries. Of course the French administration decided that this required people to fill a specific form to select the reason, to sign the form (along with name, date and place of birth, address, date of time person left home), and to carry it with them in case police stopped them... After some time they did deploy an electronic version (on smartphones, but that's still a form) but it's the very idea of doing something like that that is symptomatic of the mindset.

brnt 5y ago
> Really, it's the French administration's fondness for paperwork. French business isn't any different in my experience.
chrisseaton 5y ago
Where does this regressive mindset come from do you think?
oever 5y ago
So people carried as many filled in forms as there were reasons on the form?
- donatzsky 5y ago
  No, you were allowed to select more than one reason, but you did have to make a new one each time you went out.
BiteCode_dev 5y ago
On the plus side, they could implement it in few days while waiting for the phone version to be up. Businesses could print it for grandmas and hobos that were limited tech wise. Paper has advantages.
- mytailorisrich 5y ago
  Sure, but the 'madness' is to require this in the first place because, really, it serves no purpose (apart from allowing to prosecute people for perjury on top of fining them for breaking lockdown). That's the point re. love of French administration for paperwork and forms.
- BrandoElFollito 5y ago
  And during these few days they created a paper that was barely understandable. Luckily we had the news at 20:00 with an everyday FAQ related to that. This was literally a piece of paper, but they managed to make it difficult to understand. On the other hand, I must say that the police is human here as well and when you had almost the right papers and obviously were not trying to play the system they were very understanding (at least where I live)

BrandoElFollito 5y ago

I find that the digitalised approach makes it much easier to document and reference exchanges. France traditionally required a letter (un petit courrier), you got weeks later a paper response and so on. If you did not get a response, your letter may have been "lost" (where, it is a mystery). At least now with the integrated messaging system on some govt platforms you have a trace. What we are missing is integration. Each entity has their own system, with their own messages. We have a common login system at last (France Connect) but it is not a unified identity system (just a way to use one of the 5 or 6 "official" systems to connect to a new application). Then you have the problem of answers: you send an email, and receive a letter. To which you cannot reply back. When I look at countries such as Estonia or Poland, I envy their digital approach. Poland for instance has an app that will download all your key information: id card, driving license, the car papers, your visits to the doctor, the drugs prescriptions, the medical results - everything. Of course, if this is hacked it is a problem but I would like to have at t least the possibility. In France I have to have a huge pile of papers for everything.