Les Miserables: Gloomy French must copy English

Paris academic argues glum compatriots can only find happiness across Channel

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THE French are utterly miserable and the only way they can become happier is to be more like the English, argues a leading Parisian academic.

In a "bombshell" article for the French edition of the English-language news website The Local, Professor Claudia Senik, of the Paris School of Economics, says most French people aren't living La Vie en Rose. They are instead Les Miserables, the glummest people on the planet, according to an international survey carried out in 2011. The study suggested the French were more gloomy than people living in warzones like Iraq and Afghanistan.

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