<ul class="summary-list"><li>Samar, a 19-year-old from <keyword id="41896" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Iran">Iran</keyword>, travels from country to country to avoid being deported back to her abusive father in Iran.</li><li>For the past two years, she has shuttled between Turkey, Armenia, and Ecuador, three of the few countries Iranians can visit without a visa.</li><li>Samar says her mother and stepfather have tried to bring her to them in California, but President Donald Trump's <keyword id="6369388" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="travel-ban">travel ban</keyword> bars Iranian nationals from coming to the US.</li><li>Life with her father in Iran was so unbearable, Samar said, that she attempted suicide.  "I cut my wrists and he just stood there laughing," she said.</li><li>The pandemic and border closings have made it even harder for Samar to get to the US. "Even if there was a way for her to come before, everything has become much more difficult now," an Amnesty International representative said.</li></ul><p>Samar longs to be like other girls. But her life has been turned upside down by politics and a pandemic. </p><p>For the past two years, she has bounced from country to country alone to avoid deportation back to her homeland of Iran.</p><p>She searches for rooms in places where she doesn't speak the language. She lugs bags of groceries for blocks because she cannot drive.</p><p>She only travels with what fits inside her small suitcase.</p><p>Samar has done all of this at a time when most girls are enjoying their last days of high school.</p><p>She's 19, bright, and articulate.  But she's never had a boyfriend or even a close group of friends.</p><h2>For as long as Samar can remember, her parents fought constantly.</h2><p>When she was little, she'd write "peace contracts" for them to sign, pledging not to fight again. They'd always sign them, but a few hours later the arguing would start again. </p><p>She knew her father kept a pistol in the house, but she'd never seen him take it down from its place on the bookshelf. One day, during one of her parents' many arguments, he grabbed the gun and threatened both Samar and her mother. </p><p>"What I remember most was the sound," Samar said. "My mom kept covering my eyes and my head was in her chest."</p><p>When her mother said she was going to call Samar's grandfather, Samar recalled, her father threatened "to shoot him through the window.'"  </p><p>Samar describes her father as a cruel man. He would hit her dog, Nikki, almost every day, she said.</p><p><div type="image" title="Samar with Nikki in Shiraz." height="927" width="1495" msid="76326855" hostid="261"></div></p><p>In 2014, Samar's mother had enough and fled Iran — and her abusive husband — for the United States.   </p><p>She took a flight to Chicago, ostensibly to referee a karate tournament. But as soon as she touched down she applied for asylum. <br /><br />Then she filed for divorce. </p><p>Samar's father got a court order preventing Samar from leaving the country and joining her mother. He effectively kept her hostage in their home, she says, and if she's forced to return to Iran, he'll lock her up again. </p><p>"I just want to run far away, where he can't hurt me anymore," she told Insider. "But I can't. And I don't want to know what he has planned next." </p><p>After Samar's mother was granted asylum, she moved to California and met Kia Nasseri, an engineer who came to the US from Iran in the 1970s. </p><p>The two got married in 2016. <br /><br />They now share a modest two-story house with Kia's 26-year-old son from a previous relationship. There are palm trees outside, a fountain in the front yard, and a lake nearby.</p><p>Samar's stepbrother has a TV in his room and his friends come over to watch. </p><p>Her mother declined to be interviewed, but Samar says she understands why she left Iran without her.  <br /><br />"She needs to be safe and happy," she said.</p><p>Without her mother's presence, though, Samar says life with her father became so unbearable she attempted suicide.</p><p>"He put so much mental pressure on me, telling me that my mom hates me and that no one wants me," Samar told Insider. "I cut my wrists and he just stood there laughing."</p><p>Shiraz, where Samar's family is from, is a fairly metropolitan city with almost 2 million people. It's historically known for its poets, its gardens, and its wine.</p><p>But Samar remembers it as a place of great unhappiness. </p><p>"It's toxic," she said. "People are sad and they're trying to make themselves happier with things — money, cars, houses — to ignore the fact that so much is wrong in the country." </p><p>In Iran, Samar needed her father's permission for everything, including going to school. She soon fell behind in her studies. </p><p>"Everyone was like, 'Your dad needs to sign this,' and I didn't even want to hear his name," she said. </p><p>Samar's mother and stepfather have been trying to bring her to the US. Nasseri paid lawyers in Iran to fight for Samar to visit them in California.</p><p>"Finally we got a judge to allow one exit from the country," he told Insider. </p><p>Samar's exit visa was granted in 2018, just months after President Donald Trump signed an<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-in-trump-travel-ban-2018-6"> executive order</a> banning foreign nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries, including Iran. </p><p>"Once that happened, we just had to keep her out of Iran by moving her around from country to country," Nasseri said. </p><p>Unable to reunite with her mother, Samar applied for visas in Australia, Canada, and Mexico. But her applications were either rejected or unanswered.  </p><p>Since then, she's been traveling between Armenia, Turkey, and Ecuador, three of the few nations that allow Iranians entry without a visa. </p><p>She can stay in each country for 90 days. When her time runs out, she decamps to the next country to avoid deportation back to Iran. </p><p>Nasseri has been supporting her financially, borrowing against his home equity to help with housing and food.  </p><p><div type="image" title="The view from Samar's window in Instanbul." height="1600" width="1200" msid="76326858" hostid="261"></div></p><p>She's now in Istanbul — for the second time — following stays in Quito and Yerevan.</p><p>She's been able to make short visits to Georgia, which allows Iranians entrance for a few weeks at a time.</p><p>Despite not having finished high school, Samar is fairly fluent in English. She's interested in studying Spanish, too. (She watches sitcoms in Spanish, like "Money Heist," to help pick up the language.)</p><p>Even on the run, she tries to be fashionable, favoring shorts and brightly colored sneakers. With her petite build and round, olive cheeks, Samar looks much younger than her 19 years.</p><p>She loves reading novels in English, including James Patterson's "Kill Alex Cross," and Lauren Oliver's "Panic."</p><p>She tore through E. L. James' "Fifty Shades Darker," which would be forbidden in her native Iran. </p><p>There was a bookstore near her flat in Quito and during the month she lived there, Samar finished seven novels. <br /><br />Reading distracts her from her bleak predicament, Samar says, and helps with the loneliness. </p><p>Her mother visits whenever she can, splitting her time between California and wherever her daughter is holed up. But usually, Samar is on her own. </p><p>"I was 17 years old the day I got out of Iran," she said. "I was alone all of the time and doing everything on my own. I am getting used to it, but it never gets easy."</p><h2>Without residency papers, Samar can't work or attend school.</h2><p>Border guards look at her with suspicion and people are often rude when they see her Iranian passport. </p><p>"People don't understand your situation so they think you've done something criminal and they treat you badly," she said. "It's one thing that my family isn't with me but I have to move around every few months, and it's really hard to make friends." </p><p>Just when she starts to know someone, she said, it's time to leave again.</p><p>"I am really depressed a lot of the time, there is no one I can talk to," she said. "I am away from my mom, my dog. It is really sad."</p><p>Quito was beautiful but Samar was frightened by the high crime rate.</p><p>Violent assaults, robberies and petty thefts are common, according to the <a href="https://www.osac.gov/Country/Ecuador/Content/Detail/Report/d89b4807-a69f-4bd6-99d5-15f4aebdcfcd">State Department's Overseas Security Advisory Council</a>, with tourists and other foreigners frequent targets.</p><p>"I couldn't even carry my phone outside with me," Samar said. <br /><br />The owner of the house where she stayed warned her not to leave the house after 5 pm. So she would wake up early and go for long walks.</p><p>"I used to walk for five hours straight," Samar said. "There was a park near the house and I would walk around it. It was very relaxing. People brought their dogs to the park. It was a great environment."<br /><br />But even in the mornings, she wouldn't carry cash or her phone.</p><p>Most of the time Samar just stays inside whatever room she's rented, watching Netflix and ASAPScience videos or studying for her GED.</p><p>She perks up talking about her education and her future. You can hear a glimmer of the bright and ambitious young woman inside.</p><p>"I know that I'm going to pass the GED, 100%," she says cheerfully. "So I also try to study the pre-med topics, anatomy, physiology, the courses that I want to pick for my future."</p><p>"When I finally get into a good university," she said, "I will already know everything."</p><p><div type="image" title="Samar visits a church in Quito, Ecuador." height="2500" width="1859" msid="76326861" hostid="261"></div>She's also exploring her faith. On her travels, Samar has visited churches in Ecuador and Armenia.   </p><p>She's moved away from Islam and has begun to embrace Christianity, though she's hesitant to call herself a Christian. </p><p>"When people ask me what my religion is, I don't say I'm Christian because I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say that," she said.  "I haven't been baptized and I don't know that much about it. I've done my basic research, but I think there's so much to know before you can actually call yourself Christian."<br /><br />But in terms of her basic beliefs, Samar cherishes love, acceptance, and equality, values she says Christianity embraces.</p><p>"I believe in Jesus. I believe in Christianity," she said. "It's what I pray to."  </p><h2>Throughout her hardships, Samar has tried to find beauty in small moments. But it's hard.</h2><p>She thinks of herself like a small fish fighting to stay alive after its tank has broken. </p><p>"I'm just lying on the floor breathless, struggling to survive," she said. "Occasionally there's a drop of water around me from the broken tank. Like, a video call with my dog, Nikki, or the laughter of others in the street."</p><p>"But I'm dying slowly," she added.</p><p>It makes her unhappy to think how her mother has to shuttle back and forth between her daughter and her new husband.</p><p>"Kia, he needs someone to stay by his side," Samar said. "They just got married a couple of years ago. They want to be together. They haven't even passed the whole honeymoon phase. People think, like, just because they're a little bit older that they don't need time together, but that's just not true." </p><p>Last year her family's attorney, Curtis Morrison, petitioned the State Department for a waiver to Trump's travel ban to enable her to come to California. <br /><br />A consular official in Turkey directed the visa office to give her the waiver but, after more than a year of administrative processing, there was still no resolution.</p><p>And then the pandemic hit.</p><p>On April 22, President Trump signed an executive order <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/proclamation-suspending-entry-immigrants-present-risk-u-s-labor-market-economic-recovery-following-covid-19-outbreak/">suspending all immigration into the United States</a> for at least the next 60 days. It's unknown what the long-term effects of the order — or the pandemic itself — will have on Samar's plight.</p><p>"The goal of this administration is to cut off all immigration," says Charanya Krishnaswami, Amnesty International's Director of Advocacy for the Americas. "Even if there was a way for her to come before, everything has become much more difficult now."</p><p><div type="image" title="Samar standing on the sidewalk in Quito." height="3024" width="4032" msid="76326866" hostid="261"></div>Samar's tourist visa in Turkey has already expired, and the country has restricted travel out of Istanbul. <br /><br />She's been able to obtain a tourist waiver but it's unclear how long it will be valid.</p><p>Samar says she's now at the mercy of the Turkish government and "they could kick me out at any time."</p><p>Armenia has already suspended all visas for Iranian citizens. Ecuador hasn't shut its borders, but there are no direct flights from Turkey.</p><p>"I have an Iranian passport," Samar said, "and a lot of countries won't allow layovers for Iranians."</p><p>With much international travel still locked down, Samar and her family worry she'll be sent back to her father.</p><p>If she has to return to Shiraz, Nasseri said, "he might have someone there harm her."</p><p>For now, Samar is waiting for a response to her case from the U.S. embassy in Ankara. But, she says, it feels like the United States has abandoned her.</p><p>"The State Department implemented the waiver process in a way that it just doesn't work on purpose," Morrison said. "It's so frustrating."</p><p>A State Department spokesman declined to comment on Samar's case, saying visa records are confidential under U.S. law.</p><p>Eight months ago, Samar and Nasseri joined other separated Iranian families in a mandamus lawsuit, a request to compel the US government to follow its legal obligation.</p><p>Most of the other claimants have been reunited, but Samar and her family continue to wait.</p><p>"People like us have no voice," she said. "It feels like no one cares."</p>

'I'm dying slowly': An Iranian teen says she has to travel from country to country or be sent back to her abusive father

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/58e197ae8af57859008b5b11-960/undefined" alt="Is Genesis History Compass Cinema" data-mce-source="Compass Cinema"><p class="source"><span>Compass Cinema</span></p><p class="caption">"Is Genesis History?"</p></img></div><p></p></div></div>At one time, the strategy for getting the attention of faith-based movie audiences was pretty straightforward: build a grassroots marketing campaign focused on certain congregations and churches, bus them to movie theaters, and let word of mouth build.</p><p>It was a model that led to numerous religious-themed movies having impressive opening weekends at the box office, most notably Mel Gibson's epic depiction of the final hours of Jesus Christ, "The Passion of the Christ," which is still the <a href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/domestic/mpaa.htm?page=R&amp;p=.htm" target="_blank">highest-grossing R-rated movie</a> of all time.</p><p>With the rise of streaming, there have been obvious tweaks to faith-based marketing, but those who work in this part of the film industry have also seen a change since President Donald Trump started running for and then won the White House.</p><h2>'There's riches in the niches'</h2><p>"What's shaking out since Trump is that people don't trust institutions. They don't trust the top-down, they want stories that are real and honest," marketer and producer Erik Lokkesmoe told Business Insider. "It's a feeling of, 'Don't tell me it's simple and easy.' The audience we're serving now knows issues are complex."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/584aca61ca7f0c24018b4814-1738/undefined" alt="trump supporters" data-mce-source="Jonathan Erns/Reuters" data-mce-caption="Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump has his picture taken as he greets supporters after speaking at his 2016 South Carolina presidential primary night victory rally in Spartanburg, South Carolina February 20, 2016."><p class="source"><span>Jonathan Erns/Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">Donald Trump welcoming his supporters while running for president.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div>Lokkesmoe says the days of just going directly to community leaders, librarians, teachers, and pastors to get the word out about a movie are over. He observes that within the Christian audience, there are now subgroups, all with different beliefs and tastes. As he puts it, in today's faith-based market, "There's riches in the niches."</p><h2>How to find the 'Trump audience'</h2><p>One obvious niche that everyone is trying to cater to at the moment, of course, is Trump's base. Though Lokkesmoe says it's still too early to get an exact read on the president's most ardent supporters, he has seen what kind of power they can give to a project.</p><p>The documentary "Is Genesis History?" explores how the world intersects with the history recorded in the Book of Genesis. It was released as a <a href="https://www.fathomevents.com/" target="_blank">Fathom Events</a> one-night special in late February and earned $1.8 million on just <a href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/daily/chart/?sortdate=2017-02-23&amp;track=isgenesishistory.htm" target="_blank">704 screens</a>. It was the top-earning theatrical release that day (a Thursday), beating out "The Lego Batman Movie" and "Fifty Shades Darker" (both of which played on more than double the number of screens as "Is Genesis History?" did).</p><p>"That is clearly a Trump audience," said Lokkesmoe. "The feeling of 'We're under siege, our beliefs are being attacked, let's get together one night and confirm our beliefs.' That's very much a Trump mentality."</p><p>But it's not just the theatrical realm seeing a Trump bump. Those who keep any eye on the burgeoning streaming market for faith-based titles have noticed more passion online.</p><p>Michael Scott is the CEO and cofounder of <a href="http://pureflix.com/" target="_blank">Pure Flix</a>, which is considered the Netflix of the faith-based market. He has observed a liveliness from his customers since Trump got into office.</p><p>"I feel some of the audience feels beat down a little bit by some of the media and now it's their chance to be more open and comment about the movies and talk about the movies," Scott told Business Insider. "That's the environment now. There's more openness to talk about faith-based films."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/58e1990677bb7099008b5b44-702/undefined" alt="The Case For Christ Pure Flix" data-mce-source="Pure Flix"><p class="source"><span>Pure Flix</span></p><p class="caption">"The Case for Christ."</p></img></div><p></p></div></div>Pure Flix currently has over 5,000 titles available to stream (ranging from features and TV to preaching and teaching content), and the company also produces its own titles (its latest, "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6113488/?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">The Case for Christ</a>," stars Erika Christensen, Faye Dunaway, and Robert Forster, and it opens in theaters April 7). Though Scott says business has continued to thrive on the streaming side since his company started in 2015, that's not necessarily because of current events. As he sees it, you still have to tell a specific kind of story for the faith-based audience.</p><p>"One of the key reasons why people come to faith-based films is because of the message," he said. "You have to drive the message first and then wrap an organic story around the message. If you are leading with just a great story then they could see a Hollywood release."</p><p>That formula worked well for releases like 2015's "War Room," which focused on a troubled family finding strength through prayer and went on to earn <a href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=main&amp;id=warroom2015.htm" target="_blank">over $11 million</a> to win its opening weekend. And this year's "The Shack," starring Octavia Spencer as God, took in <a href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=theshack.htm" target="_blank">over $16 million</a> to come in a respectable third place its opening weekend (and it's earned close to $54 million worldwide to date).   </p><p>Scott said that's why you shouldn't expect upcoming faith-based movies to revolve around political issues of the day like the Trump travel ban or other stories coming out of his administration.</p><p>"Maybe those would be dealt with in a subplot in a movie," said Scott, who noted that Pure Flix's 2014 film "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2528814/" target="_blank">God's Not Dead</a>" did feature a Muslim family.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/58e4fe3477bb7028008b6699-1280/undefined" alt="Gods Not Dead Pure Flix" data-mce-source="Pure Flix"><p class="source"><span>Pure Flix</span></p><p class="caption">"God's Not Dead" (2014), a Pure Flix production.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>Making the faith-based movie bigger</h2><p>It's hard to see the "message-first" formula changing. But in the Trump era, there's a new group being forged out of the faith-based market: what's known as the "aspirational" audience.</p><p>These are people who want to engage in the content beyond the theatrical or TV experience. That could include buying the book that a movie or show is based on or starting community outreach.</p><p>"The aspirational audience is not the Trump voter," Lokkesmoe said. "They are more artistic, younger, and less political."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/57e9550fb0ef973f1b8b8063-1000/silence paramount final.jpg" alt="silence paramount final" data-mce-source="Paramount"><p class="source"><span>Paramount</span></p><p class="caption">"Silence."</p></img></div><p></p></div></div>But Lokkesmoe said the aspirational audience has grown up in an era when they are inspired to make change. His company, <a href="https://www.aspiration.is/" target="_blank">Aspiration Studios</a>, has recently built campaigns focused on this audience for Martin Scorsese's "Silence" and the upcoming TV show "Genius."</p><p>Scott noted that Pure Flix is looking to launch a separate division that will focus on the aspirational market with movies that are budgeted between $10 million and $30 million and have A-list talent attached (its current films are made for between $4 million and $7 million).</p><p>Lokkesmoe said that's the biggest takeaway so far from the Trump era: There's more interest in feeding content to a particular audience than ever before.</p><p>"We're seeing a lot more funders and people thinking beyond how to find an audience that is out there for whatever topic or issue," he said. "There's more interest in that than 'Let's make one movie that's going to change the world.'"</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/spider-man-homecoming-trailer-shows-off-iron-man-and-vulture-2017-3">Sony and Marvel just dropped another 'Spider-Man' trailer -&#xa0;and it looks amazing</a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="ZjeW5qYTE6NF_gki4VqLDzaGfWKS6XDZ" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'ZjeW5qYTE6NF_gki4VqLDzaGfWKS6XDZ',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

How one corner of the movie business is thriving under Trump

Jay-Z and Kendrick Lamar lead with the most 2018 Grammy nominations - here's the complete list of nominees

<p><div class="image-container"><div class="image"><img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/52b59d36eab8ea7b529f9b82-1200-600/paris-cafe-2.jpg" border="0" alt="paris cafe" width="800-" /><p class="source">derekskey via <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/derekskey/9159256442/in/photostream/">www.flickr.com</a> creative commons</p></div></div></p>
<p>ONE of the most perplexing questions of the early 21st century is this: how can the French, who invented joie de vivre, the three-tier cheese trolley and Dior's jaunty New Look, be so resolutely miserable? To outsiders, the world's favourite tourist destination embodies the triumph of pleasure over desk-slavery, slow food over fast, the life of the flâneur over that of the frenetic. Yet polls suggest that the French are more depressed than Ugandans or Uzbekistanis, and more pessimistic about their country's future than Albanians or Iraqis. A global barometer of hope and <keyword id="6358439" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="happiness">happiness</keyword> puts the French second to bottom of a 54-country world ranking, behind austerity-battered Italians, Greeks and Spaniards, and ahead only of Portugal.</p>
<p>Happiness is of course a slippery concept. Asked if they are happy, people everywhere are more than likely to say yes; far fewer say that they laugh much. Gallup, a pollster, has devised a global "positive experience index", based on whether respondents report that they laughed and smiled a lot or did something enjoyable the previous day. By such measures, <keyword id="6354785" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="France">France</keyword> does better than the world average. But take out war-torn or poor countries, and measure the French against fellow rich nations, and they still turn out to be unhappier than their peers. The French report fewer "happy experiences" than those in America, Britain, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Canada, Norway, the Netherlands, Austria and Belgium. The land of the bon vivant is an unhappy outlier.</p>
<p>Claudia Senik, a French economist at the Paris School of Economics, calls this the "French unhappiness puzzle". In a 2013 study, she found that the French were not only unhappier than their level of wealth and unemployment would suggest, but also more discontented than French-speaking people in Belgium and Canada (so language is not the reason), and more miserable when they emigrated compared with non-French expatriates in the same place (so they take their gloom with them). "Unhappiness seems to be more than about life in France," Ms Senik concluded. "It is something about being French."</p>
<p>Naturally, Ms Senik's findings caused a stir in France, prompting Maureen Dowd, a New York Times writer who was visiting Paris at the time, to report that "joie de vivre has given way to gaze de navel". Le Monde ran three pages under the title "Liberté, Égalité, Morosité", in a bid to decode its fellow countrymen's "persistent melancholy". France, it turns out, has the highest suicide rate in western Europe after Belgium and Switzerland. An American psychiatric study showed that, among ten rich countries, the French were the most likely to have a "major depressive episode" at some point in their life. Even the French language seems to be particularly well stocked--morosité, tristesse, malheur, chagrin, malaise, ennui, mélancolie, anomie, désespoir--with negativity. Can there really be something about being French that makes for so much gloom?</p>
<h3>Fifty shades of noir</h3>
<p>Two periods in France's recent history have contributed most to the rich seam of misery in its culture--one after the revolution, the other after the second world war. In the quarter-century from the fall of the ancien régime in 1789 to 1814, France overthrew a monarchy, endured the Terror, and lost an empire. After this period the Romantic movement, from Baudelaire to Chopin, expressed a melancholy infused with nostalgia and ambivalence towards a society dominated by rationalist thought and bourgeois values.</p>
<p>In "René", a novel published in 1802, Chateaubriand introduced to the world the tortured French youth, whose "wretched, barren, and disenchanted" existence embodied what the writer called the mal du siècle. In his memoirs, Chateaubriand recognised that he had set more of a trend than he had bargained for:</p>
<h3>If René did not exist, I would not write it again...all we hear nowadays are pitiful and disjointed phrases; the only subject is gales and storms, and unknown ills moaned out to the clouds and to the night. There's not a fop who has just left college who hasn't dreamt he was the most unfortunate of men; there's not a milksop who hasn't exhausted all life has to offer by the age of sixteen; who hasn't believed himself tormented by his own genius; who, in the abyss of his thoughts, hasn't given himself over to the "wave of passions"; who hasn't struck his pale and dishevelled brow and astonished mankind with a sorrow whose name neither he, nor it, knows.</h3>
<p>Romantic miserabilism was experienced as a form of pleasure. "Melancholy", wrote Victor Hugo, "is the happiness of being sad." It was treated as a noble state, a higher aesthetic condition. "I do not pretend that joy cannot be allied with beauty," wrote Baudelaire in his diary. "But I do say that joy is one of its most vulgar ornaments; whereas melancholy is, as it were, its illustrious companion." Much of this tradition is firmly fixed in today's French mind. Hugo's poem "Melancholia" is required reading for French lycée students, as is Alfred de Musset's "La Nuit de Mai", whose narrator laments that "Nothing makes us so great as great sorrow."</p>
<p>The strange beauty of melancholy finds some echo in mid-20th-century France, which produced a second wave of miserabilism. Françoise Sagan's "Bonjour Tristesse", published in 1954, for instance, opens with the 17-year-old Cécile's lament:</p>
<h3>A strange melancholy pervades me to which I hesitate to give the grave and beautiful name of sorrow. The idea of sorrow has always appealed to me, but now I am almost ashamed of its complete egoism. I have known boredom, regret, and occasionally remorse, but never sorrow. Today it envelops me like a silken web, enervating and soft, and sets me apart from everybody else.</h3>
<p>Yet the ennui that marked this second period had less to do with nostalgia than nausea. In "L'Etranger", Albert Camus's protagonist, Mersault, is perhaps the world's best-known embodiment of anguish in the face of the unknowable meaning of existence, or the absurd. Post-war French theatre developed the absurd, through the plays of Camus, Jean Anouilh and the Franco-Romanian Eugène Ionescu. Samuel Beckett, an Irishman, wrote "Waiting for Godot" in French. On a chilly winter's evening in 1953 on Paris's left bank, two years before the play went on to unsettle English-speaking audiences, it was first staged at the 75-seat Théâtre de Babylone, and struck a chord with post-war Paris.</p>
<p>Neither Camus nor his contemporary, Jean-Paul Sartre, was ultimately a pessimist. But it is the torment of existentialism, rather than its conclusions, that captured the imagination. Indeed, the left-bank literary clique led by Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, which gravitated to the cafés of Saint-Germain-des-Près, adopted ennui as a way of life as well as a philosophy. When Sartre handed the original manuscript of "Nausea" to Gallimard, his publisher, he entitled his novel "Melancholia".</p>
<p>Perhaps the best exemplar of miserabilism among contemporary French fiction writers is Michel Houellebecq, the controversial Goncourt-prize-winning novelist, in such nihilist works as "Whatever" or "Atomised". His characters invariably lead empty, often sordid, always disillusioned lives. "In the end," writes Mr Houellebecq in "The Elementary Particles", "there's just the cold, the silence and the loneliness. In the end, there's only death."</p>
<p>There have, of course, been periods during which the gloom lifted. It was after the double shock of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71 and the bloody Paris Commune, after all, that the Impressionists took their tubes of paint and brushes outdoors, delighting in light and colour. Despite a measure of fin-de-siècle anxiety, the belle époque was a moment of breezy certainty. Gustave Eiffel unveiled his wrought-iron tower in 1889. By 1900 the City of Lights drew 51m visitors to its universal exhibition, under the theme of "Paris, capital of the civilised world", and Matisse, Derain and other fauves had started to capture exuberant colour and warmth on canvas. Yet miserabilism seems to have a greater hold on the French mind today.</p>
<h3>I doubt, therefore I am</h3>
<p>One reason could be the French appetite for brutal self-criticism. From Descartes onwards, doubt is the first philosophical reflex. "The rationalist tradition makes us sceptical; we exist through criticism," argues Monique Canto-Sperber, a philosopher and director of Paris Sciences et Lettres, an elite university. "We treat those too full of hope as naive." In "Candide, or The Optimist", published in 1759, Voltaire mocks the folly of looking on the bright side in the face of unimaginable horrors. "Optimism", says a disabused Candide in the novel, "is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable." When a French magazine recently tried to decode today's national pessimism, it concluded: "It's Voltaire's fault". "We find it more chic and more spiritual to doubt everything."</p>
<p>Up to a point, this is an affectation of the elite. "It is in a certain Parisian milieu that there are intellectuals who are grumpy by trade," argues Jack Lang, the Socialist former culture minister: "There is a gap with the rest of French society." Yet France cherishes public intellectuals, so their influence spreads wide. It is a talking, thinking culture. Its films value dialogue over plot; its talk-shows are interminable. The French, wrote a helpful official guide for British servicemen heading to France for the 1944 liberation offensive, "enjoy an intellectual argument more than we do. You will often think that two Frenchmen are having a violent quarrel when they are simply arguing some abstract point."</p>
<p>The country treats its philosophers like national treasures, even celebrities, splashing photographs of them across the pages of glossy magazines. And it ensures that the canon of French thought is fed to the whole country. All pupils taking the school-leaving baccalauréat exam must study philosophy, and teenagers are examined on such cheery essay questions as "Is man condemned to self-delusion?" or "Do we have an obligation to seek truth?". So if French intellectuals are predominantly critical pessimists, miserabilism may in part be the consequence of holding them in such esteem. Were Americans to pay more attention to the writings of Noam Chomsky and Jared Diamond, perhaps they would be gloomy too.</p>
<p>This critical reflex reaches right into the classroom, generating a further source of negativity. In French schools, for example, the tradition is for teachers to grade harshly, and praise with excessive moderation. Under a nationwide system that awards marks out of 20, a pupil doing a dictée has points (or even half-points) deducted for every error; so a child swiftly ends up with zero. The idea is that all children can always do better. The result is a lack of what the French, borrowing English syntax, call "la positive attitude".</p>
<p>Fully 75% of French pupils worry that they will get bad grades in maths tests, according to an OECD study, nudging stressed-out South Korean levels (78%). A recent government-commissioned report on a small pilot experiment in some French secondary schools, where Cartesian grading had been shelved in favour of a more encouraging system, noted with some surprise that weaker pupils were absent from school less often, more confident in the classroom, and "less stressed when faced with failure".</p>
<p>If the French are life's critics, they are at the same time idealists, and these two make unhappy bedfellows. Thanks to the philosophers of the Enlightenment and the 1789 revolution, the concept of progress towards an ideal society has, despite periodic turmoil and bloodshed, been a powerful narrative in the French mind. The best embodiment of this is the French declaration of human rights. Unlike the American declaration of independence in 1776, which guaranteed the rights of all Americans, the French version 13 years later guaranteed the rights of all mankind.</p>
<p>To this day, the ambition to inspire the world with a secular republican ideal, backed by the spread of French culture and language, stirs political leaders. "France is only itself when in pursuit of an ideal," wrote Dominique de Villepin, a former prime minister, in a deliberate echo of Charles de Gaulle's reference to the country's "exceptional destiny". It is great stuff for myth-making, as De Gaulle demonstrated so masterfully after liberation from Nazi occupation. But when reality does not quite match up to ideals, self-criticism kicks in and misery results.</p>
<p>Left-wing French intellectuals never quite got over the failed revolutionary promise of the May '68 student uprising, nor their disillusion at the declining influence of French thought from the 1980s onwards. Others struggled to reconcile French values with the country's darker moments, notably under occupation. Today, "belief in a better tomorrow has come to an end," says Christophe Prochasson, a French historian. "There is a crisis of progress."</p>
<p>Put simply, the French know that they have enjoyed a fabulous way of life, and are depressed by the thought that neither the French model, nor Europe, seems able to provide the prosperity or the national grandeur it once did. The upshot is that "we are collectively animated by a sense of doom and decline," says Dominique Moïsi, of the French Institute of International Relations. "We have in mind this great nation of ours: the major power in Europe under Louis XIV and Napoleon I, the biggest allied standing army in the first world war. Now there's a sense of 'What happened to us?'."</p>
<h3>The pleasure of pouting</h3>
<p>France is not alone in contemplating its diminished status. Britain had a grand past too. But the post-colonial, post-industrial British do not share the French sense of national depression, partly because they never considered their empire to be part of an effort to export a culture or a model society. And, having accidentally given the world the English language, Britain feels relaxed about its global cultural influence. The contrasting decline of French, once the language of European diplomacy, high culture and polite conversation, is felt as a national wound.</p>
<p>Idealistic France's painful reckoning with decline is therefore quite different to the British approach of resigned muddling-through, argues Jean-Philippe Mathy, of the University of Illinois, in "Melancholy Politics". It is almost, says Mr Prochasson, the historian, a form of bereavement. "There is a very profound pessimism today due to the realisation that France is becoming a country like any other, and this is difficult."</p>
<p>Does it matter? Certainly, France's high suicide rate is a serious cause for concern. Dissatisfaction also makes the French a particularly fractious people to govern, ready as they are to contest, and protest, at the slightest excuse. Confidence too is elusive in a country given to pessimism, making it harder still for politicians to persuade the French to try new ways of doing things.</p>
<p>Yet pessimism has not stopped France from enjoying itself. French hedonism has survived miserabilism--or perhaps provided a refuge from it. Even in the immediate aftermath of the 1789 revolution, the country exhibited a "thirst for pleasure", as one contemporary newspaper report put it: "The stream of fashion, a succession of dinners, the luxury of their splendid furniture and their mistresses, are the objects that chiefly employ the thoughts of the young men of Paris." With firework displays, extravagant fashion, circuses and carousels, Paris at the time, for the rich at least, was all about enjoyment. During les années folles, upper-class American tourists took the steamer to Normandy and then the railway to Paris, drawn to France, writes Harvey Levenstein, a historian, as "a land that was free from American puritanism, where the pursuit of pleasure reigned supreme".</p>
<p>Nor has miserabilism discouraged the French preoccupation with beauty and taste. France does not wear its gloom like a dreary accessory. On the contrary, its culture delights in elegance, sensuality, quality and form: the exquisite hand-stitching on the haute-couture dress; the immaculately glazed tartes aux framboises lined up in the pâtisserie window. The aesthetics of daily life, the art de vivre, remains a source of both grand gestures and small stolen pleasures. It is no coincidence that the two biggest luxury-goods groups in the world are French.</p>
<p>Modern French culture may not have supplied great writers to rival Hugo or Molière, and Paris may lack the buzz of New York or London. But it is hard to argue that negativity has stifled French creativity. Would France have brought the world existentialism had Sartre been a cheerful fellow?</p>
<p>The critical impulse has promoted cultural innovation. Both cinema's New Wave and French literary theory were born of critical reconstruction of what came before. Some of France's most creative periods have followed bleak times: the flowering of painting, literature and science after its defeat in the Franco-Prussian war, or of the avant-garde in art and fashion after the horrors of the first world war. Christian Lacroix, a French designer, points out that war and revolution in France have been times of "creative reinventions, the moment new forms of luxury come into play".</p>
<p>Perhaps the French need dissatisfaction and thrive on doubt. "There is a certain pleasure taken in being unhappy: it's part of an intellectualism of French culture," says Ms Senik. "Malaise and ennui are to France what can-do is to America: a badge of honour," wrote Roger Cohen in the New York Times recently. Pessimism does not preclude pleasure. All that sitting around at pavement cafés, looking fashionably discontented, can be fun. Optimism is for fools; sophisticates know better. Bleak is chic--especially when opening another bottle of Saint-Emilion and reaching for the three-tier cheese trolley.</p>
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