Those are two very different things :
First, the fact that any hippy cannot come to a prime minister to tell him what to do is not correlated in any manner to the french presumably being peasants, or to the french at all. Would George Bush receive him ? I hope not.
Second, when you say that people generally accept to be told what to do by their governments, it is like saying that americans are - without exception - against abortion, and that all of them go to see prisonners executions just as the french go to the movies. You have a brain ? Use it.
That said, I don't like the "don't you forget Diderot and Voltaire were french" argument either. Those guys are dead. We remember them, but they don't really inspire us any more, and the fact that they were pretty smart does not excuse our present mistakes.
As for the "recent protests against the governement", I'm affraid that pretty much fuels the parent's argument. Those protests were actually against bringing a little flexibility to labours laws, and were essentially lead by civil servants not willing to giving up their unfait advantages, and by completely unambitious students who think it is normal to be given a job for life when you have studied "sociology and philosophy of the ancient tribes of sweden in the second century B.C.".
Just my two cents. You might just ignore me anyway, as I'm french.
