Vuelva usted mañana

Me pareció muy interesante este artículo sobre la burocracia en Francia, que es compartida en gran medida por casi toda la Europa continental. Creo que en Québec la cosa no llega a tanto, sobre todo por la influencia anglosajona, pero la tendencia es muy marcada:

In the French novel Ipso Facto, by Iegor Gran, an ordinary French citizen is pushed to the margins of society after loosing his high school diploma. Without a diploma to provide the legal foundation for his adult life, his career, his marriage, and his sanity eventually crumble. Although this novel is in part fantastic, it provides a stunningly accurate satire of the French bureaucracy, which I have experienced first hand as an English teaching assistant in France. After three months in the employ of the French government, I am astonished when I come back to the United States and am able to accomplish simple tasks without paperwork.

A year ago, while living in Paris and working towards a master’s degree, I applied for a job teaching French high school students to speak English. The French government hires language assistants from all over the world to take responsibility for conversation classes in primary and secondary schools. By the time I accepted the position that was eventually offered me in Draguignan, a small town in Provence, I had already spent a year and a half abroad, applied twice for a long-stay French Visa and once for the French equivalent of a residency card. But I knew that working directly for the French government would be quite different from going abroad as a student.