France truly has awesome trains though. Main criticism is that it lacks routes that don't go through Paris (like Lyon-Bordeaux, or Marseille-Bordeaux). But I live close to Marseille and it takes me 7 hours to go see my father who lives in Cherbourg (with a 1-hour connection in Paris, and one of the train being local). Coompared to 1200km of driving and zero planes.

And boy, don't get me started on the Eurostar. It's expensive sure, but 2 hours-ish to go from London to Paris is ludicrous.