Thomas Friedman writes a column at the New York Times and a stream of engaging books. Those I've enjoyed include The Lexus and the Olive Tree and The World is Flat. I'm a keen reader of Friedman's views on globalization, and I envy Friedman's easy access to readers: the New York Times is a great platform. But I'm not alone in finding Friedman long on impressions but short on data.

In this spirit, I had my own Thomas Friedman moment recently. Only one anecdote, with only one or two (or four, depending on how you count) data points.

What I saw, here in France, was a meeting, in France, between co-workers in their 20s. Two were French, and two were Chinese.

The Chinese guy had an iPhone, with Chinese characters. He was completely at ease using it to look up a phone number in the French yellow pages, and he checked his messages politely, without disruption, during a break.

His Chinese colleague, a woman in her twenties, corrected my mispronunciation of her name. I had more or less invited her to do so, but I could sense how, for her, it was important to learn the others' names and for them to learn hers.

The energy and enthusiasm of the Chinese colleagues stood in contrast to that of their French co-workers. Everyone has a bad days (even a string of them!), but the French duo gave an unmistakable impression of fatigue (at 10:00 in the morning) and ennui (I really don't know what they would rather have been doing, but meeting with Chinese colleagues didn't engage them). The French guy checked his cell phone several during the meeting, on the lookout for messages.

The meeting took place among equals, all working on the same team. English was the working language. All seemed to have comparable technical merit in their field.

I'm a steadfast friend of France and have an overflowing reserve of goodwill towards younger Europeans. But in light of scenes like the one I've witnessed make me wonder: if it doesn't matter where work is done, what would motivate a global organization to site workers in France instead of in China? Granted, it often does matter where work is done. And one anecdote does not ground an economic policy. But I'm left with the conclusion that, when measured against comparable workers elsewhere, the French workers have catching up to do.