Dear French Friends, the Numbers Say You Are in Denial

Opinion. Every figure below is sourced in the box at the end; the conclusions are the author's.

In France, the national conversation still treats the United States as a cautionary tale: no social safety net, no health card, people dying at the hospital door. This week a French entrepreneur, Brivael Le Pogam, flipped the script for Americans and told them they do not want to become France. His post on X passed 3 million views. I want to flip it once more, for the French. You do not need to fear becoming France. You already are it.

I have lived in America long enough to compare without a tourist brochure. Here is what the comparison looks like when you use official numbers instead of slogans.

The paycheck gap

According to the OECD, the average full time wage in 2025, adjusted for the cost of living, was $86,977 in the United States and $60,483 in France. That is 44% more for the average American worker. Not the CEO. The average worker.

Then comes the part nobody prints on the pay slip. For a single worker on the average wage, the OECD tax wedge, meaning income tax plus employee and employer contributions as a share of what the job costs the employer, was 47.2% in France in 2025 and 30.0% in the United States. French employers alone paid 26.7% of labor costs in social contributions, the highest rate in the OECD.

The long view is worse. In 1995, IMF data put French GDP per person at $26,927 against $28,671 in America, almost level. In 2025 it was $49,129 against $90,267. Even in purchasing power terms, the gap widened from about 18% to about 26%. France was not overtaken. It was left behind.

The state that eats the difference

French public spending reached 57.3% of GDP in 2025, according to INSEE. Taxes took 43.5% of GDP in 2024, the second highest ratio in the OECD; the American figure was 25.6%. Public debt stood at €3,595.5 billion at the end of June 2026, or 119.0% of GDP.

You would expect world class services for that price. Look at health care, the one argument the French never lose at dinner.

The hospital myth, both sides of it

First, the honest part. In 2025, 26.7 million Americans, 7.9% of the population, had no health insurance for the whole year, according to the Census Bureau. Insurance is not free care either: a KFF analysis of 2019 claims found that people in large employer plans paid $646 out of pocket on average for an emergency room visit, with a quarter of visits under $128 and a quarter above $907. That hurts, and Americans feel it on the bill.

But the cliche of dying at the door is false. Since 1986, the federal EMTALA law has required hospitals that offer emergency services and take Medicare to examine anyone who asks and stabilize an emergency, regardless of ability to pay. And 53.5% of Americans held employment based coverage in 2025.

In France the cost does not show up on a bill. It shows up in the hallway. After the summer of 2026, the emergency physicians' union Samu Urgences de France reported that 43% of the 58 departments that kept counts had at least 20 patients a day spending the night on a stretcher for lack of a bed. In half of the roughly one hundred departments that measured it, the longest wait reached 48 hours or more; in 32 it reached three days. Twenty six facilities reported at least one death of a patient being treated or waiting on a stretcher; the union says its survey cannot establish causes. Meanwhile 6.3 million French adults had no regular doctor in 2025, according to the Court of Audit, and the median wait for a cardiologist was 42 days.

The carbon sermon

France produces about 0.7% of global greenhouse gas emissions; China produces 30%. Yet the French driver is asked to atone at the pump. On September 18, 2026, a liter of SP95 E10 cost €2.15, and €1.02 of it was excise tax and VAT. From 2028, the EU's new ETS2 carbon market will put a price on road fuel and heating as well. It was decided in Brussels, not in the National Assembly.

The jobs picture closes the loop. French unemployment hit 8.3% in the second quarter of 2026, its highest since 2020, against 4.2% in the United States in September.

Verdict

I'm French. I've seen this movie. France pays first class prices for a service in decline, then congratulates itself on its model. The problem is not that the French cannot read these numbers. It is that every election rewards the people who promise not to change them.

Brivael tells Americans not to become France. I tell the French something harder: the exit exists, but it does not run through blaming America.