France is a free country, by any sensible definition of the term.
Sure, you can coin a definition of "free" that excludes France, but you can do that for any country, including (and perhaps especially) the United States.
Purely on mechanics, the "by any sensible definition" clause does make this a classic "no true Scotsman" argument.
What you probably wish to argue is something like: "Those unique 'American freedoms' that ostensibly result in such a crappy health care system --- and the inevitability and necessity of this is highly debatable --- do not contribute nearly as much to actual freedom as you seem to think."
What you are actually arguing is: "There exists no sensible definition of freedom wherein the citizens of the United States are free and the citizens of France are not."
A disagreement which continues from this point will devolve quickly into an argument about when and how ideas are "sensible". This is perhaps a really interesting topic when pursued in its own right, but the assertion has, at that point, effectively derailed future debate about the different freedoms enjoyed by the French and Americans.
> France is a free country, by any sensible definition of the term.
haha. Funny comment. There are probably a thousands ways the US is more Free than France. Let's not start by checking all the administrative barriers to do ANYTHING in France. The US is certainly not an exemplary model for Freedom anymore, but trying to compare France and US in terms of Freedom is a lost battle.
There are also thousands of ways that France is more Free than the US. Which just goes to show only looking at ways that A is worse than B is a stupid (Edit: biased) way of comparing A and B.
EX: On September 11, 2001, the FBI had a list of 16 people deemed "no transport" because they "presented a specific known or suspected threat to aviation."[6]... In April 2007, the United States government "terrorist watch list" administered by the Terrorist Screening Center, which is managed principally by the FBI, contained 700,000 records.[15] A year later, the ACLU estimated the list to have grown to over 1,000,000 names and to be continually expanding. Note: There are no where near 1,000,000 known terrorists this is just name matching including known alias and including anyone close and well into the 90+% false positives.
Sure you can always find aspects where France is not acting as much a police state as the US (at least for now), but at the same since we are on Hacker News, let's talk about how difficult/painful it is to set up any kind of business in France and keep it alive and growing. There's a reason why most french entrepreneurs who are serious end up going abroad instead of staying in France.
Doesn't the US have barriers as well? If you look at the problems Tesla have selling cars in Texas, or the issues Uber have been having with taxi law, it would seem that the US is far from perfect in this regard either.
On the World Bank economic rankings of the easiest place to start a business, which is what Forbes have been using to bash France, France does score rather badly at 41st place, but the US is only at 20th place. Mind you, I am not sure if I should take these figures all that seriously. Rwanda is 9th, apparently, while being 53rd on ease of getting electricity.
It's not because the US is not perfect in that regard that it means it's not superior. We are not dealing with binary numbers here. Entrepreneurship freedom is usually way higher in the US than in France, but of course it depends on the States considered as well. But the trend is clear overall.
Why don't you read "about democracy in America" from Tocqueville ? It's more than 200 years old but it's very relevant even to this day to understand the differences in terms of culture between France and the US. And the culture shapes the laws and the aspects of Freedom.
I second Julie1 here, "When the citizen start to participate with their money, rather than their own self, the republic has been lost, taken away by the same politicians you are paying to write your laws and the militia you are paying for protection."
Sure, you can coin a definition of "free" that excludes France, but you can do that for any country, including (and perhaps especially) the United States.
(or perhaps you were being sarcastic)