fact that you actually provided not so long ago...

facts.

France was the only large European country without a large brain drain to other industrialised countries, while the UK had the worst such brain drain. And that for a period when France had a government including communist ministers.

France was the only major European country without a large brain drain to other industrialised countries, while the highest brain drain occurred with respect to the UK. And this was at a time when France had a left-wing government, even including communist ministers!

If you don't like Ségolène Royal, that is your prerogative, but it would certainly be better if such bias could be avoided in what are meant to be factual articles, and kept in your editorial section.

It's entirely the prerogative of the Financial Times to oppose Ségolène Royal's candidature. But the reputation of your newspaper would be better served if such bias were kept to the editorial section, and carefully avoided in what purport to be factual articles.

If you don't like Ségolène Royal, that is your prerogative, but it would certainly be better if such bias could be avoided in what are meant to be factual articles, and kept in your editorial section.

My suggestion:
If you don't like Ségolène Royal, that is your prerogative, but it is distressing that such bias seems to inappropriately influence the reporting in what is meant to be factual articles. Surely it is enough that such opinions be expressed in your editorial section, where they belong.

I envision future LTE´s ending with the "ET signature catapult", like

"...just today XXX members at eurotrib.com have fully suscribed this letter..."

Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.

Dear Sir,
On today's front page of the European edition, you print a scaremongering story about a possible brain drain from France should Ségolène Royal be elected, recalling what one could read in the "good old times" of the Cold War in the 70s ("French industry warns of brain drain").

While it is your job to report what France's top leaders are saying, it would also be appropriate to provide facts on the matter - facts that you actually printed in your own columns not so long ago... In your edition dated 18 May 2006, Simon Briscoe presented a graph showing the net migrations of graduates to and from various countries in the early 2000s. That graph (attached) showed that France was the only major European country without a large brain drain to other industrialised countries, while the highest brain drain occurred with respect to the UK. And this was at a time when France had a left-wing government, even including communist ministers!

It's entirely the prerogative of the Financial Times to oppose Ségolène Royal's candidature, but it is distressing that such bias seems to inappropriately influence the reporting in what is meant to be factual articles. The reputation of your newspaper would be better served if such opinions were kept to the editorial section, where they belong, and carefully avoided in front page headlines.

? Seems "here" and "London" have been permuted ?

Maybe if all your skilled folk run away, I can get a retirement job in Paris with my 100 words of schoolboy french?  I promise not to talk loud and wear white sneakers and shorts.

'Course, it was, anecdotally at least, true that quite a few people did leave France in the early- and mid-'90's. But let's not forget who was in charge at the time - it sure wasn't Mitterand (even when he was still President).  

As for me, the prof I was closest to basically told me it was time to leave in 1994. My wife didn't want to, it was very hard, moving with all your things and also your children is quite difficult, but getting the obligatory 5-7 years professional experience every cadremploi job listing seemed to require at the time, and then come back with the requisite cv, seemed important at the time. I was American too so it was easy for me back then, which went into his thinking. So here we came all of us, wife and kids in tow.

And when I got here, I found I was not alone, and when I ended up in b-school in the US (had planned to return to insead but my son fell ill so that wasn't possible in the end), there were actually quite a few fellow French including one other from La Seyne s/Mer, who is now in London. There are quite a few ex-pats here, for instance practically the entire MRI research lab here in Minneapolis is French (the unofficial language at the lab - my best friend here works there) and also for a time I had both a senior analyst from Clermont and an international tax specialist from Lille on my staff of eight, and it wasn't me who hired them.

So there was a bit of a brain drain, or perhaps more a drain of those with some modest ambition, but this came later on and cannot be left to the feet of the socialists. In fact if you look at the employment numbers since 1990, the only time we had it (relatively) good was during Jospin. I sometimes wonder how these market fundamentalists in anglo-counties get their facts wrong in this regard, but then one need not wonder overmuch - they've got a clear agenda, and it is the ultimate goal of neo-liberalism - accumulation of more wealth and power, the people be damned. Or rather, the people be moulded into better a more serviable service class.  As one (right-wing) colleague of mine often says, in the ultimate middle-class expression of the goal of anglo-american liberalism:

service at McDonald's is much better in times of high unemployment.

Non-US readers are reminded that unemployment benefits in the US are pitiful to the point of non-existance. In fact, credit card debt is the primary source of private unemployment insurance in America. A true worker's paradise.

That more equitable forms of social organization actually meliorate labor markets as well should seem like an evidence to me, but then, this is not their goal.

The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet. Winston Churchill