Where is happiness?

Emmanuelle Ducros 08:42, March 21, 2023

The 10th edition of the annual Global Happiness Report was released yesterday; A report prepared by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, inspired by the idea of Gross National Happiness born in Bhutan in 1972, which believed that a country's success should be judged not on its economic performance, but on the satisfaction of its inhabitants. In a nutshell, what does this annual happiness report consist of?

It is a global ranking of countries, based on surveys conducted locally with econometric and social data. A representative sample of people in a country is asked to rate their current life on this scale of 0 to 10 and crossed with six factors: GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, social support, generosity and corruption, freedom.

What is the happiest country in the world?

Finland has been going on for six years. Then come Denmark and Iceland. Then Israel, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland. Countries with similar characteristics: High healthy life expectancy and GDP per capita, low levels of corruption, significant generosity in a community where individuals help each other, and freedom. At the bottom of the ranking we find, far behind all the others, Lebanon and Afghanistan.

And the France in all this?

The France, does not lie its reputation as a paradise populated by people who believe they are in hell. It leaves the list of the 20 happiest countries in the world, after spending only one year there. 21st! People consider themselves worse off in France than in the United Kingdom. It does not console many to know that among the comparable countries, only Spain and Italy consider themselves even more unhappy.

Strange... How do we explain this?

As far as France is concerned, we cannot blame the level of wealth, since France is still 7th in the world, nor healthy life expectancy, in the European average, i.e. among the highest in the world. In terms of social support, France is the world champion in redistribution. 31% of its national wealth allocated to social spending.

Hint, in the comments provided by the authors of the study: "The Nordic countries have the highest level of well-being, although they are not richer than many other countries. But they have higher levels of trust, mutual respect and mutual aid."

Mutual aid, we could see during the health crisis, or with the war in Ukraine, that it was not an empty word. There remains the question of trust and mutual respect... The appalling political spectacle of recent weeks and the translation in the street these last nights probably explain part of the misfortune of France, a country that has trouble loving itself... fractured, locked in resentment, self-denigration

There remains the question of freedom.

Freedom in the sense defined by the study, i.e. not only democracy and the rule of law but the fact that everyone can make important decisions about their own lives. The France, a country full of norms, laws, administrative layers that discourage its impulses, curb its creativity, discourage its youth and as we can see, prevent any major reform whatsoever.

Perhaps it is there, the source of French misfortune. A protective cocoon, so protective that it is suffocating and prevents us from seeing our luck.