b.

According to the study on Consumer Protection in French and British Credit

Markets, “For France, consumer credit is perceived as a useful tool of household
finance, but one that risks to aggravate rather than to reduce social and
economic exclusion. High interest rates charged to highly risky consumers are
perceived as a transfer out of the lower classes. Consumer protection is
understood at least in part as protection from credit itself.” This statement of
the author contradicted his claim in the article that says, “Indeed, it seems
likely that the strict enforcement of debt contracts in France might have reduce
consumer demand for credit.” It is because as what the statement implies it
would be conducive to the part of consumers even if they only have few consumer
credits companies circulating around.
Another statement from the article says, “In any case, the actual
repayment experience of French and American lenders was similar: in each
case fewer than 1 percent of loans faced nonpayment problems.” This
statement is being contradicted by the study of La Responsibilisation de
L’economie: What the United States can Learn from the French Law on
Consumer Overindebtedness. This study stated that, “Between 2001 and 2003,
nearly 450,000 French consumer sought legal relief from the debts. In other
words, three-quarters of one percent of the entire French population declared
themselves unable to deal with their debts over the last three years. During the
same period, over 4.6 million U.S. consumers declared bankruptcy. This
represents 1.6% of the total U.S. population”. Consistent with these figures, the
debt burden of U.S. consumer is about twice as heavy as the weighing on
French Consumers. This statement from the study says otherwise about the statement
written in the article.

Gunnar Trumbull. February 2008. “Consumer Protection in French and British

Credit Markets”.
https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/media/imp/ucc08-
17_trumbull.pdf

Jason J. Kilborn. La Resposibilisation de L’economie: What the United States

can Learn from the New French Law on Consumer Overindebtedness. Volume 26
Michigan Journal of International Law. 619 (2005). Available at:
https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjil/vol26/iss2/3
Supra note 320. (reporting total filing of 448, 833 from 2001-2003).
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY. THE WORLD FACT BOOK, France, People.
(estimating total French population at just over 60 million as of July 2004).
Available at http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/fr.html
Supra note 99. (reporting total filings of 4,616,349 from 2001-2003).
The U.S. Census website reports a total U.S. population of just under 294
million as of June 2004. See http://www.census.gov
c.
Establishing appropriate credit policies and collection procedures is vital
to the success of any small or big businesses.  Many business owners put off
creating a credit and collection policy until they absolutely have no other
choice. As their customer base builds, and more and more customers want to
pay by credit, they realize that they need to open up a credit card account or
offer credit terms. Or they ignore those few customers who don't pay their bills,
until the few grow into many, and suddenly they realize that they need to
spend time collecting overdue accounts. This is like what happen in the U.S
that they extend consumer credit during a period in which this sort of lending
was relatively unprofitable. However, in France the banks were larger, fewer,
and focused on supporting government-defined goals for economic
development. This circumstance left consumer lending in the hands of
dedicated consumer loan companies. With the invention of profitable, indeed
lucrative,and consumer lending these differences in the engagement of banks
continued to matter in the industry.