Frankly, as critical as I am about many aspects of flying in the US, this is one of the things they do better, both airlines and passengers: strict application of boarding groups, without merging them all in one. Passengers have understood the system, and most respect it (those that don't often get sent back, and AA now even has a system where the gate BP scanner makes a loud noise if a pax tries to cheat). Also, they are typically much more disciplined when it comes to the number of pieces of carry-on, many planes have the new cabins where carry-on suitcases are put in vertically and people do it. All that is much much messier in Europe - please give me US style boarding any day.

What, France has no LCC?? easyjet is very big, Ryanair not small either, nor is Volotea. And there is Air France's own LCC, Transavia. France is full of LCCs, and AF has stopped serving many routes because of that.