nawl

Hey nadia,
I think the poooor French have a right to answer this one, and that's what I'll try to do here as a citizen of this "little exotic, country" (as the very french and polytechnicien Vivendi Universal CEO Jean Marie Messier likes to put it...)
I believe you're not avoiding the very same trap you say US critics over here are falling into : over-generalization from the area you live in and the social circles you're into, to a whole society.
France maybe a smaller country (a mere 12 hour drive from north to south), but it should be obvious 60M people can't be described in a much more straightforward manner than the US's 250M or so. Even more so if the country also has a centuries old history of immigration.(Off the top of my head, something like 50% of the French have a foreign grand parent.)
France does not *pride* itself in cultural unity, quite the contrary: La France des differences, La France black-blanc-beur are often-heard mottos, and even if they're just that, mottos, they describe modern and metropolitan (read:parisian) french lifestyle quite well. Let me say outright that locals from Provence aren't "modern and metropolitan" in my book.
What France may call its cultural unity is a limited set of common values dealing with the way we live with each other, and interact with the state: what we call Les valeurs républicaines (nothing to do with shrub ;) )
As hazy a concept it may sometimes be, it certainly doesn't refer to ethnic uniformity or standardized lifestyle, let alone religious (and BTW, how's "in god we trust" for cultural uniformity ?).
France has been one the first countries to pride itself in putting religion back where it belongs : in the private matters' drawer.

Also, let me say I'm as shocked as the next guy when I hear people using an ethnic slur during a normal conversation. Well, not when it comes from the rednecks in my native countryside, but I would expect better from members of my social circles. Something else : the "blinding whiteness of people's skin around here" would make ROTFL any french person living in any decent-sized typical city if "here" meant "france". You're probably referring to the people in your residence, but have a look at your rent bill, and the kind of jobs available in Sophia, and you'll understand why it's so WASP (or rather WhiteFrenchCatholic) around here. Sophia is an artificial creation, a geek's nest that seems out of place with the rest of the area (and yes they did neglect cafes and university life when they designed it.)
Nice and the Cote d'Azur are not typical places either: they're the giant swimming pool of the french in the summer, the playground of the mob and the rich the rest of the time, and a retirement home always. 50ish people hanging around all day in the pubs of Marseille are known around the country for their racism, and if you do infer our values from their rants, then don't blame our journalists who interview your wacko of the day or Kansas creationist of the day to give us a good laugh at the US of A :)

As for the other things you mentioned:
* maybe the jewish conspiracy thing had something to do with the fact there are lots of people from arab descent at our research center (and in France). There's a sad fact that's too complicated a matter to discuss here : those people don't like each other. at all.
But I can assure you that in the general population, this theory would instantly raise alarm signals and be dismissed as X-Filesish (we are still traumatized with our schizo behavior in WWII, and I can tell you that history classes at school do all they can to keep that guilt alive. I would even add: to the point of making it a taboo to criticize anything jewish today, and it's never a good thing to give a hardcoded value to right and wrong, but that's just my opinion...).

* the vegan, etc stuff :
a big difference with the US and France is that special interests groups are not self-aware here : we don't tend to put a label on every lifestyle like you do. There's no word for geek, imagine that :)
The upside is that we don't get the fragmentation and ghettoisation of society that comes with this self awareness, and we also avoid all your PC-nonsense :)
So, be a vegan if you'd like, just don't feel obligated to wear a fucking tshirt to claim it or we'll laugh at you. That's sooooooooo typically american :)
The downside is, well, it may indeed be less easy to find everything that suits you according to your way of life. It may be harder to find support to live an alternative life.
So yeah, in a bad way, that's unity at work, but then again in the US where else than California would you have this ? Central and southern US states aren't much better at tolerance than is the French countryside, and Paris is not that much worse at it than California (really: pay a visit to the Indian and Chinese districts in Paris and be amazed !)

All I can answer for is the France that I've seen... so yes, I should be fair and say that when I'm shocked about things, I'm comparing the cote d'azur to California, and not really France to the US. If you ask me a general question, I'll give you an answer that generalizes. I don't see how you can avoid that.

France not priding itself on its cultural unity... uhm, I'd have to disagree. The pride in the French language is the most obvious example. All the valiant attempts to keep American culture from polluting various aspects of your treasured life. Yes there are people like you who adore the English language and our american culture, but the general sentiment that the country outputs is very proud and nationalistic. (At that, nationalistic in a much more positive way than I see american pride.)

Feel free to criticize me on the "general sentiment" that the USA outputs, and I probably won't agree with the nationalism, but I do see why people get the opinions they do about the US.

As for the blinding whiteness bit: Sophia wants to be Silicon Valley. I'm comparing the two. I went to high school in one of the most privileged areas in the world, and I'm still surprised at how closed and white Sophia is. For comparison, my rent in Sophia is less than half what I'd pay for the equivalent in the bay area, and the government doesn't help students nearly as much in the US.

I miss eating out at a middle eastern food restaurant one night, a Japanese food restaurant the next, then grabbing a burrito for lunch, and then having a Chinese friend share her bean bun with me. Even if France isn't white, your immigration is still rather weighted in one direction.

By the closedness bit, I meant how the schooling system fit into the jobs available to a larger degree than I've seen in Silicon Valley. Why I was told that Polytechnique populates entire areas of French administration. Why the "big" schools effectively never admit people who did a DUT.

Dude, it's not hard to label stuff as "vegetarian." They're better about that in Bath than in Antibes. It's just a regional thing.

Augh, this is too long anyways. I was just being homesick.