It Must be That Superior Quality-of-Life Thing Americans are Supposed to be Envious of

Le Parisien reports that 2/3 of French homes have sub-standard elecreical work, and that it causes 80 000 house fires a year, fully one third of all home fires.

In fact a casual observer would call just about any property in the entire country a pit.

Of the 27 million homes in France , 7 million are at risk and 2.3 million are considered very dangerous, said the report, and an additional 300,000 properties can be deemed hazardous each year. The main deficiencies identified were lack of grounding, the location of electrical equipment (circuit breakers, service connections ...) obsolete equipment, non-observance of safety rules in bathrooms, and the lack of a protection against overcurrent [such as fuses or circuit breakers].

The damage is valued at €1 billion per year, not counting the victims – 400 deaths and 8000 casualties annually.