COMMON sense says that if we are to benefit from being Europeans, we must learn from our European neighbours about what they do best and teach them a little about what we do best. That is nowhere more true than in France, perhaps the most "hibernophile" of all our EU partners.
France is one of the most technologically innovative countries in the Western world. Every morning the presenter on the TV channel France Deux introduces a new French gadget or invention, most of them items for everyday use ranging from a self-activating filler to block punctures in car tyres to a gauge to measure the breakability of drinking glasses.
The list below features seven French innovations which could be relatively cheaply adapted to Irish conditions (one is already in Ireland in embryonic form). I have not included anything which would cost thousands of millions of pounds, like Paris's unique system of washing the streets by pumping recycled river water through the gutters, or French Railways' world-beating Trains de Grande Vitesse (or TGV).
It ends with one suggestion for a far-sighted Irish entrepreneur to exploit a real and universally commented on absence in France's top service industry, tourism.
1. CREDIT-CARD BILL DISPENSER
In French shops, supermarkets and restaurants, credit cards are used interchangeably with cash. This means that in a restaurant the waiter carries a small, portable credit card receiver like a large calculator.
The customer gives the credit card to the waiter, who inserts it at one end of this device; the customer taps the number on the calculator; and out comes a completed bill and credit card receipt. The whole process takes a few seconds, about a quarter of the time the equivalent transaction would take in an Irish restaurant.
2. THE BUS STOP REQUEST SIGN
If the first French innovation is only for that minority who carry credit cards, the second is for everyone. It is a simple, commonsensical aide to travelling on buses in unknown cities or unknown parts of a city.
It has two elements. First, there are two or three detailed maps of the bus's route on display inside the bus, with every stop clearly named and marked. When a passenger wants to get off he or she presses a button and a sign lights up at the front of the bus to say "Stop requested". Thus people unfamiliar with the route do not have to worry about missing their stops.
On bus routes used by tourists in central Paris there is also a recorded voice which announces the name of the stop 30 seconds before it is reached. The names of all stops are prominently signalled either on bus shelters or special bus-posts.
3. THE MOTORWAY TRAFFIC JAM WARNING SIGN
Dublin has already followed the example of Paris and other continental cities in erecting electronic signs telling motorists about the availability of city-centre car parking spaces. The motorways around the French capital carry similarly useful signs warning of traffic jams ahead and how long any hold-up is likely to be: This allows motorists to turn off in time to avoid bottlenecks.
4. THE DAILY HOUSEHOLD RUBBISH COLLECTION
For the past century and more Paris has been almost unique among European cities in collecting household rubbish on a daily basis.
Houses, apartment blocks and public buildings put out their rubbish in closed containers on the pavement either in the morning or the evening (up to 11.30 p.m.) every day, and they are picked up and automatically emptied by smart high-tech refuse collection lorries within the hour. I believe this is the single most important element making Paris one of Europe's cleanest cities.
THE MINITEL
This is the French information technology industry's gift to the world, and is already in Ireland in embryonic form. It consists of a small computer linked via a four-digit number through the phone line to an extraordinary range of services.
With the Minitel, you can consult your bank account; order train, plane, theatre and concert tickets; make hotel reservations; and do your shopping, all from the comfort of your own sitting room. Supermarket shopping, for example, needs only a client number, a product catalogue and a credit card, and the only thing you have to stir yourself to do physically is open the door to the delivery man.
There are other, more exotic services too. Not only can you consult a Russian newspaper about the progress of the election there, you can also get the reports you are interested in faxed out to your home by merely pressing the "send" button. If you want to use a dating agency, or more explicit sexual services, they too can be ordered by Minitel.
All this for around 20 francs (£2.50) per month on your phone bill.
6. MAPS AND GUIDES
When it comes to innovative mapmaking, the French are simply the world's best: whether it is the Institut Geographique National's meticulously detailed 1:25000 and 1:50000 large-scale maps for walkers, soldiers and planners; Michelin's world famous tourist guides and motoring maps; or the wide range of marvellously-explained and easy-to-decipher pocket guides to Paris.
In particular, our Ordinance Survey has a lot to learn from the French about how to publish a good city guidebook. For if the guides to Paris are among the world's clearest and easiest-to-use, the Ordnance Survey's Dublin guide, with its impenetrable system of 0.5. grid reference points and numbered smaller streets, must surely be one of the least user-friendly.
7.POOPER-SCOOPER SCOOTERS
These small green scooters and motorcyclettes, equipped with vacuum pipes, are a common sight trawling the Parisian pavements sucking up dogshit. Dog-fouled pavements are probably a bigger problem in Paris than in Dublin, but maybe Dublin" Corporation could contact the manufacturers and ask them whether their scooters could be adapted to help deal with the Irish capital's appalling litter problem.
8. AN IRISH `CHARM SCHOOL' FOR PARISIANS WHO HAVE TO SERVE THE PUBLIC
This is my suggestion, only half tongue-in-cheek, for something Dublin could teach Paris. The unhelpfulness and unfriendliness of Parisians working in restaurants, banks and shops, driving taxis and staffing public offices is legendary.
The reputation of the Irish here for being, friendly, cheerful and anxious to help is of equally mythic proportions. There is a strong element of caricature on both sides: while researching this article, I have discovered at least two friendly, chatty Parisian waiters; exceedingly helpful people in my local post office, bank, chemist and butcher's shop; and even - wonder of wonders - a bus driver who stopped to pick me up when I was sprinting between stops.
But the Irish reputation for extreme friendliness and helpfulness is there, so why does not some imaginative Irish entrepreneur make use of it? What I propose is the establishment of a "charm school" to teach Parisians dealing with the public how to smile and appear interested when asked for information or assistance; how to resist that infuriating Parisian shrug of indifference when a customer has a problem; how to deal with some dim, uncomprehending foreign tourist as if he or she were a real, live human being.
I believe such a school would be an instant and spectacular foreign currency (and not just French franc) earner . . . and an important part of Ireland's contribution to promoting wider European friendship and understanding