Dutch-near-German-border here. I think your opinion stems from the quality of industrial bread in France. If you look in the Netherlands you'll find a wide variety of very tasty pre-sliced industrial bread, always fresh baked in the morning.

That being said, I always buy unsliced artisan German bread from my local baker who imports it from across the border.

And for fun, let's fan the flames a bit. You can't compare the simple french baguette to the rich flavour of artisan German bread, simply no contest ;)

As a Frenchman who has lived 7 years in France, I can't agree with you.

Is the Dutch industrial sliced-bread better than the French sliced-bread ? Yeah, mostly because it's "freshly" baked every morning.

But it is still industrial bread, which can't be beaten by bread fresh from the bakery.

As for german bread, they do have a wide variety, I give you that, but once again, it's more and more industrial.

My parents in law, who are germans, complain that more and more bakery only bake pre-made bread and don't do their own anymore.

So yeah, if you have the chance to have a "real" baker nearby, it can be quite gorgeous, but in the general case, not so much.

Dutch industrial bread is nice in its own way, but it's not really bread like a baguette is. White Dutch bread has a cake-y character to it, which goes very well together with more 'delicate' toppings like butter & hagelslag (chocolate sprinkles), jam, a young dutch cheese or boiled ham, which are common in the Netherlands. Whole wheat sourdough bread, no matter how great, just doesn't mesh with delicate toppings like strawberry jam. That said, a baguette or artisan bread is a far superior base for a good old cheese, Serrano ham or other 'strong' toppings. This is why brown dutch bread is never worth buying IMO -- it's kind of a weird thing like cake made with whole wheat flour that reminds me of antroposophic foods: it's slightly less unhealthy but it tastes like crap. If you're gonna eat something unhealthy it better taste good.

I meant "who has lived 7 years in the Netherlands" of course.

American here. Several years ago, our son was working in the Netherlands (west), and met us for a few days in Paris. He took back a fair bit of bread, not liking the Dutch product. To be sure, I have had good locally baked bread in Lower Saxony.

In my childhood in northern Ohio, there was a local bakery that had its own slicer and would slice the bread on request. I remember the product as quite good (I preferred the rye), but growing boys will eat pretty much anything.

Depends on what kind of bread you're talking about. A good sourdough will last a week and still taste great.