Two sides of the Euro coin.

This is Jeff.

The three words on the French 2 Euro coin are: Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.
They are the core beliefs of  Democracy, and the French made philosophy that gave America the ideas and language of Revolution…which in turn gave the French the courage to stage their own.

In the last two hundred plus years our countries have traveled similar paths but somewhere in the forest of the last century the French took a path a little to the left.
America loves the idea of Liberty, while the French definitely give more weight to the ideas of Equality and Fraternity.
Perhaps the French passion for Liberty was accidently packed with the pieces of the staute they gave us.

Or perhaps the concept was lost in the depths of the embarrassment that was Vichy France.
Whatever the case, for better and worse, equality is everywhere. I don’t mean the obvious examples of universal healthcare or high wages for teachers, or a livable minimum wage. I mean the more subtle examples found in our little town of Uzes:
In our town there is an extension of the Universitie Poulaire whose mission roughly translates into “give back the knowledge that you know.”
This is where Carolyn and I take our private language classes with Claudine.

This is also where Eleanore and Frances take an art class once a week.

The class is two hours long with a professional artist as the teacher.

The cost is .50 euro cents each because the government subsidizes the cost, ensuring that all kids have access not just to a program, but the highest quality program. Amazing!

Now, flip the coin. What comes with ensuring equality is often times beauracracy and tedium. Take for example the Uzes town Easter Egg hunt.  Best told by Eleanore, “First of all the Easter egg hunt was postponed until the day after Easter. It started at the Office of Tourism.  Frances and I had our large Easter egg baskets ready to find, take and keep! We walked into the back room and listened to a story about a French dragon. After that we ran out to find eggs only to find out that we needed to stand in line to receive a scavenger hunt worksheet. The one women working, handed each family a map, worksheet and a pencil perfectly folded while we were standing in front of her. She could have passed these out while we were listening to the story! Finally we got going and ran to the first destination on the map where we searched for eggs. There were none.
My Dad looked at the worksheet again and realized that we had to answer questions about Uzes at each stop on the Scavenger hunt. After a half hour of  the scavenger hunt we ended up at the park and we ran to the grass searching for eggs. Still none. Then we saw everyone huddled around a table at the far end of the park. Frances and I ran over and saw the pile of little egg baskets. They wouldn’t give us one until they saw that we answered all our questions in our Uzes workbook. Then we were asked to repeat the secret spell of the Dragon while touching an Ostrich egg. They gave us our baskets, along with more rules:                           
‘You can only find three eggs.’  Frances was even more bummed than I was. She was ready to dominate. After 30 seconds of egg hunting we returned to the table with our three eggs which they took away from us and handed us a diploma.  Frances hucked her diploma in the basket and said. ‘That’s it?’.   I was so annoyed, but then we realized there was one more step.  We stood in line again and then showed our diplomas to a man who carefully handed us three little chocolate eggs and one medium sized egg.  Just like everybody else.
I prefer the Easter egg hunt I usually go to in Auburn at Barbara and Brad’s house. There, you have a chance to get the most eggs, and if you are lucky you might get one with a few dollars in it.”

                                                                              

Thanks Eleanore, now go to bed.

The French have an amazing way of turning an Easter egg hunt into a long, boring, bureaucratic process with limited fun and no opportunity.  Of course because everyone found the same amount of eggs no feelings were hurt and everyone went home not necessarily happy, perhaps content, most definitely equal.