Affluenza in France – it’s official

A feature in the January / February issue of Foreign Policy magazine suggests the idea of “affluenza” is pervasive in France rather than confined to America and Britain. Stefan Theil, Newsweek’s European economics editor, bases this claim on a study of official French textbooks:

‘ “Economic growth imposes a hectic form of life, producing overwork, stress, nervous depression, cardiovascular disease and, according to some, even the development of cancer,” asserts the three-volume Histoire du XXe siècle, a set of texts memorized by countless French high school students as they prepare for entrance exams to Sciences Po and other prestigious French universities.” ‘