Hi,

I’m French and I’ve been living in California since 1997.  I just saw Sicko and that’s how I discovered your site.  I did not read all your posts so I don’t know if you already covered this topic but:

In the movie, when Moore goes to France you can see him visit a “average family” in a nice apartment.  I believe his exact words are (talking about free healthcare): “How do they pay for all this?  And then I realized that they’re drowning in taxes. I want to see the effect that might have on an average class family.”

Then we learn that the two parents Moore is visiting are making between €6,000 and €7,500 per month, which is between €72,000 and €90,000 per year. [Note from Lee—as of today’s exchange rate $1 is worth €0.74.  Therefore a person making €90,000 is making roughly $120,000 a year.)

Now here you have the official statistics from the French government.  You can see that on average a French women is making €19,182 ($25,778) per year, and that a French man is making €23,778 ($31,955) per year. The average couple (assuming that both parents are working) would then earn a combined €42,960 ($57,738) per year.

That’s HALF of what Moore’s “average” family is making.

Nobody’s primary expense in France is “fish”, “vegetable” and “vacations.” Moore’s “average family” example is totally FALSE and MISLEADING.

I don’t have any problem with FREE HEALTHCARE, FREE “MAID”, FREE SCHOOL, etc but you have to tell the truth to people. Someone at some point have to pay for those free things.

France’s budget has been in deficit EVERY year in the past 25 years (even during dot com boom). Look at this graph.

Sales tax are 19.6% and don’t get me started on payroll taxes, income tax, toll on the freeway ... etc

Even worse: even with the highest taxes in the world, France still can’t pay for free healthcare, free school, etc ... so France has to borrow money .... and here comes the debt (which was a huge topic the past election year).

Because France is now so much in debt (by the way this debt is own at 60% by foreign persons/entities), the reimbursement of the INTEREST of the debt is the second biggest expense in it’s budget. We’re not even talking about reimbursement of the debt itself, but just the interest.  So in 2005, 14.6% of the budget was used to pay the interest of the debt. This expense is larger than what France spends on national defense.

And this debt is not going to stop ... because you just can’t eat your cake and have it too ...

But I guess Moore just forgot about that ...

Of course he did.  Michael Moore, play fast and loose with the facts?  No, that could never be, could it?