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Comment by bambax | Hacker News Reader

Welcome to France! France is built on the idea that the public can't be trusted, has not really reached adulthood (won't ever) and needs to be coached by an army of civil servants whose job is to protect the State and its finances.

It's not corruption, exactly; it's the idea that the interests of the State are paramount, and everything else doesn't really matter.

If the State sells reproductions of Rodin's work, well then you shouldn't be allowed to, and you certainly aren't entitled to any kind of help.

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What is this rant?

This whole story shows the exact opposite of what you wrote: it is the Rodin museum, an independent institution which prides itself in being self-sufficient (even when it is not completely true), that is misleading the public and trying to manipulate the state ministry to its help, and the State didn't, and another part of the state ruled against them on almost all counts.

The Musée Rodin is not an "independent institution" at all, it's an "Établissement public national à caractère administratif"[0]: a government entity. The letters[1] are signed by "Catherine Chevillet, Conservateur général du Patrimoine" -- that's a civil servant. And the RMN, alluded to in the post, is also a government entity.

[0] https://www.pappers.fr/entreprise/musee-national-auguste-rod...

[1] https://cosmowenman.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/20190426-...

> France is built on the idea that the public can't be trusted, has not really reached adulthood (won't ever) and needs to be coached by an army of civil servants whose job is to protect the State and its finances.

I believe the term for that is “nanny state”.

If "nanny state" is an important causal factor explaining why the museums are behaving this way, it suggests other nanny states could see similar museum behavior?

So how are museums in Singapore treating 3D scans?

I thought "nanny state" was a derogatory description of welfare policies?

Apparently not

“Nanny state is a term of British origin that conveys a view that a government or its policies are overprotective or interfering unduly with personal choice. The term likens such a government to the role that a nanny has in child rearing.”

This is an apt description of how things are, sadly. And it all starts at the crib when parents teach their children blind obedience.

This is the complete opposite of what this story describes.

And since when are the French blindly obedient? Is that really their reputation?

The idea that French people constantly fight for their rights isn't true either; they basically just love rioting. Americans interpret this as noble political activity because Americans have an incorrect belief that protesting is an effective method of political change that comes from misunderstanding Civil Rights/Vietnam protests.

But when you actually see interviews with French rioters you find they're all conspiracy theorists who think they've uncovered French QAnon. Or they're farmers who want even more subsidies and want to get rid of climate policy.

This is just wrong on all levels - French "manifestations" are not limited to the "gilets jaunes", which were a recent phenomenon that already died out. The gilets jaunes were mostly people who never went to a "grève" before, never participated in Labor movements, never joined a "syndicat"...

Looks like we haven’t quite recovered from Napoleon…

> Welcome to France! France is built on the idea that the public can't be trusted, has not really reached adulthood (won't ever) and needs to be coached by an army of civil servants whose job is to protect the State and its finances.

Sounds a lot like Germany. One notable exception to this is when the public tries to interact with the government. Then it is expected that citizens are experts in public administration procedures and can decipher deliberately obfuscated language that abuses the passive voice (among other dark patterns) to sound more abstract and inscrutable.

> If's not corruption, exactly; it's the idea that the interests of the State are paramount, and everything else doesn't really matter.

We have a word for this concept: Staatsräson.

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