French Complaints Regarding America's New Passport Requests Turns Out to Be Their Own Fault

…Or that of their society and its "traditions".

Of 27 countries expected to have had the new biometric passports necessary to travel to (or through) the United States ready by October 2005, notes Le Monde' s Catherine Simon, only one is not ready. And it is not expected to be before May 2006. La France.

Is it for technical reasons? Not at all.

Because the interior ministry chose a private printer (Oberthur), the bureaucrats and the unions of the state-owned Imprimerie nationale (société de droit privé à capitaux publics, to be precise) are suing the state in order "to protect jobs".