About the political orientation, I do know that we are considered as a socialist country abroad, and even more in the States. I am just sharing what I have witn

About the political orientation, I do know that we are considered as a socialist country abroad, and even more in the States. I am just sharing what I have witnessed from inside. For instance, in the mind of most people, the left wing (PS, the "Socialist Party") is even considered to be right-wing-oriented. I think that French do no realize that they tend to think in a "leftier" way that the States (well, you could say that the US tend to think in a "rightier" way due to the Cold War). > and thats exactly why you end with shitty companies like SNCF and the former France Telecom who did not care about their users at all. Having competition does not solve all issues, but God, it can't be worse than State monopoly services. Some context for non-French: SNCF is the Société Nationale des Chemin de Fer (litteraly national railway company), that now manages most train traffic in France (but not the railways themselves, ironically); France Télécom (sometimes abbreviated FT) is the company which set up the infrastructure for land-line phones and started using it. Both SNCF and FT are public companies. The statuses of SNCF and FT were logical at the time of their creation as it was an initiative of the state to build the infrastructure so that most people could benefit from it. However, this also meant that the companies had the monopole and, even when it was finally broken (legally speaking), they were considered as the "by-default" company so they still detain most of the market in their respective domains. Because of this, they were never really threatened by competition and evolve very slowly, leading to a degradation of the services they provide. Additionally, it is difficult to privatize those company because of social protests that raise whenever the topic is discussed.