At the grocery store, various items are emblazoned PRIX CHOC! You don't need a dictionary to translate: shockingly low price. Needless to say, Mr FS and I have been on the giving and receiving end of various culture shocks. Some are trivial: French people are shocked to know that one cannot buy fromage blanc in the USA.
I thought that health care costs and issues would be the biggest shock to the French. And truly, they are shocked by unequal access to healthcare. But they are most shocked by the vacation issue. When we told an assembled table of 11 people of all ages that the 5 week vacation was unknown in the USA, all jaws dropped (except those of the two children).
Isn't it a law, one finally said. The word for law is droit, which also means right, which is how I translated it to myself.
Do you think the USA could ever institute such a thing? Do you think it would be great?
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