Dear Christophe, You have raised important distinctions in your discussion about the value of ’work’ and the necessity of ’money’, as opposed to the value of money and its buying power.This is a topic about which philospohers can argue infinitely, and so can theologians, without agreement or even clear conclusions. But it is safe to observe in our current economic model over here, that there has been an enormous expansion of wealth in the upper middle class. It seems almost obscene when we see a few miles away poor families still trapped in drug-infested ghettoes. Yet it is too simple to blame the rich for the plight of the poor. There are mechanisms at work in society continuously,( genetics, education, opportunity), which determine that some people fall behind and others succeed on a dramatic scale. In short, life is unfair. No question about it. That is why a nation such as France has to be admired for its fantastic free medical system, free education, and, yes, welfare payments for those in true need. Our system here in America is uneven, (although no one is refused care when they present at a hospital, and they receive the identical care that those with insurance receive. My oldest son is a doctor in New Jersey and the hospital has one-third of their beds filled by non-paying , non-English speaking, and often illegal, immigrants.) So we do have a few laws which provide some measure of care for the indigent, but we lack the broad sweeping welfare platform which French citizens can access. What I gather in reading this discussion, is that your system is abused to some degree. Perhaps one way to stop this abuse is to reduce the amount of the payments, and confine the welfare to a limited number of months, after which most people simply must be obliged to take any work available, however humble.I would require families on welfare to limit their number of children to 2, and I would not give extra welfare based on each child. This only encourages very large families. In the case of North African immigrants where the father does not work, the benefits should be stopped. And the father must be required to stay with his family in France, to be a strong father figure, a supportive husband, and not be allowed to collect welfare and use it to travel back and forth to North Africa, and/or support a second family there in Africa. I feel if these men do not find and keep some form of work, they should return home to their native country where they will have to work to survive. As France is small, it was a tremendous strategical mistake to open the doors wide to so many foreigners and to give them welfare permanently. Welfare should be restricted to the first 6 months only, after which the worker must stand on his own feet. Hopefully the children of these immigrants will find their way in French society and not face discrimination. This of course takes time, but one has only to look at the Asian immigrants to see how hard they work and succeed to realize it can be done with a strong family surrounding each child. This byzantine system of ’helping’ or ’hindering’ those on welfare by making them wards of the state is a social quagmire that evades easy solutions. The balance lies somewhere in Europe’s semi-socialistic system, where tremendous extremes of wealth and poverty are not so visible as here.We have yet to find appropriate answers over here, but we continue to experiment and shape new models and hopefully life will be kinder and gentler in the future for those less fortunate. As Maxime might say, utopia is a long way off...but even without creating utopia, we can keep up the struggle to find a better way of life !( And, yes, I agree with your readers who assert that globilization is in some ways harmful. We need SOME tarifs to protect our own industries and jobs.)