I've never been one of those naysayers who is continually mocking all things French.
I like France. I like soft cheeses. I enjoy tall, pointy towers.
And let's face it, I developed the world's biggest crush on Zinedine Zidane when he headbutted Marco Materazzi in 110th minute of the World Cup final.
I do find some small fault in the country for the difficulty I've had trying to learn a language where the last letters of every word are supposed to disappear in my throat, but it's not like English makes a lot of sense either.
So the French and I are cool.
We're so cool that I'm not afraid to admit that there's one thing I think the French do better than Americans (well, at least one).
That thing is electing presidents.
Now I'm not talking about comparing the quality of candidates in our two nations - that's a completely different column waiting to be written.
What I'm saying is that the French have a better system in place for presidential elections. It's a system that lets everyone be as idealistic as they want to be in a first round of voting and then admits a certain amount of realism in a second round.
So often in American elections, those who don't subscribe to either of the two major parties are forced to choose between our ideals and our practicality.
We Greens and Libertarians and Communists and Marijuanaists (it's really a party) go to the polls on Election Day and pick one of two options - go for broke and vote for the candidate we really want, or accept certain defeat and choose the Democrat or Republican closest to our own beliefs.
There's a certain kind of heartbreak that occurs the first time you weigh your dreams against the de facto two-party system the United States operates under.
It's a heartbreak that reappears every four years, to a greater or lesser extent depending on the candidates put up by the major parties in a given election.
It was the second time I had to make the decision, but oh, how painfully it hurt when in 2004, my heart said Ralph Nader and my absentee ballot said John Kerry.
It's a pain that millions of Americans face when their views don't fall within the paradigm of the Democratic or Republican Party.
The French brilliantly bypass this problem by operating under a runoff system.
A candidate must earn an absolute majority in order to win the election, which typically results in one round of voting where a wide range of candidates receive votes and a second round of voting that acts as a runoff between the top two candidates of the first round.
In France's recent first round of voting to elect current President Jacques Chirac's successor, four candidates received more than 10 percent of the votes, while another seven candidates received more than 1 percent of votes, which represent anywhere from just under a half million to 1.5 million French citizens in a nation with an electorate of 44 million.
I think the fact that France had 85 percent turnout in the April 22 first round shows that the populace appreciates the chance to cast a vote they believe in.
Meanwhile, the United States tends to have about half its voting age population turn out to cast a ballot on presidential election days.
Its no wonder that's the case when so many citizens look at voting as an attempt to choose the lesser of two evils in a race where no candidate who shares their political beliefs has a chance of winning.
Sure, France's election system probably has some issues, but it also just supported 16 million people in voting for candidates from parties other than the two most popular.
Which is a lesson I think our own politicians could stand to learn from.
Reach the reporter at: hanna.ricketson@asu.edu.
