Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry

One of the puzzles I have is that the French don't have a reputation for autism, even though we are one of the most autistic nations on Earth: we invented French gardens, the metric system, we administratively divided our nation into little squares that are not related to history or geography because it made us feel better, we're one of the world's top math nations, all French philosophy is basically about how the key to life the universe and everything is abstract spergy logic-chopping...

Like, who looks at grass, trees, and flowers, and thinks, "Yes, the thing to do is to turn this into PERFECT GEOMETRICAL SHAPES." Not even the Germans could come up with this. 

tfw you wake up one morning and decide to raze 90% of your incredibly historic and important capital city because you think it would be neater as lots of geometrical shapes 

French meter is a lot more autistic than other nations'! It's purely about numbers of syllables (and numbers autists love like 6, 7, and 12) while other meters take into account things like tonal accents. (Vladimir Volkoff wrote a book about this.) https://x.com/unforgivnbastrd/status/1940745074578755756

I had never looked carefully at a portrait of the Baron Haussmann before. Have you ever seen a more spergy physiognomy? 

Before this photo was taken his wife had to spend 10 minutes coaching him to look at the camera and not the floor. You can just picture him in meetings with the Emperor talking to a point in space behind his shoulder.

Urban planning is one of the great French excellences and it is of course an ur-autistic project. 

"Oh, your autistic interest is trains? You are like little baby." 

A propos of nothing, thinking of the time a Frenchman decided to write an entire novel without the letter "e" 

"Oh, did OPEC put an embargo on oil? Obviously the answer is to build 55 exactly identical nuclear reactors right away." 

The French invented the Value-Added Tax which is recognized by all as by far the most efficient tax ever invented. It's like a cathedral of pure autistic genius for tax nerds. You could write an entire book about French autism and tax design (one with many cautionary tales...) 

Sebastien Le Prestre de Vauban revolutionized architecture and warfare by devising the precise geometrical shapes that allow a fortification to bounce off cannonballs. 

For decades France outlawed white headlights. Apparently we are particularly triggered by stimuli like sudden flashing white lights. 🤔 

French Fields Medal winner Cédric Villani briefly achieved global fame when he was elected to Parliament in the Macron wave. His political career later flamed out, for some reason. 

Of course, as many commenters have pointed out, the entire structure of French post-Napoleonic law is an autistic conceit. (Pictured, Portalis, the main drafter of the Napoleonic Code.) 

As many commenters have pointed out, French math prodigy/genius Evariste Galois failed the entrance exam to the prestigious Ecole Polytechnique because he insulted, and then threw chalk at, an examiner who he thought was too slow in understanding his math. 

In fact the whole concept of Polytechnique, a military engineering school, is pure autism. 

"How do we produce the future leadership class for our military and nation?"

"Four years of extremely intense math and physics and a year of military training?"

"Mais oui. Bien sûr." 

Polytechnique was the brainchild of Napoleon, who himself was an engineer by training...

The virgin "great books seminar" vs the chad "eighty hours of math per week"

Not sure if the French "prépa" system qualifies as autistic, exactly, but it's certainly...something. I remember looking up one top prépa's website in high school and there was a phrase to the effect of "Of course, nowadays we understand that a well-rounded education is not purely about academics, which is why students should set aside one hour per week for physical exercise and one hour per week for socializing."

From DMs: the great French philosopher Simone Weil's brother André was so autistically brillant at math that Simone spent her life believing she was stupid. Of course, Simone starved herself to death, which is very autistic. 

I forgot the most obvious one! We love, love, love our trains. 

Also true. https://x.com/Albrochier/status/1940780097927369196