@izaya Automatic gearboxes are somewhat new in france, they were pretty much inexistant 10 years ago, they're now very common and it seems a lot of people are very happy with that.
If I were to drive cars I'd much rather drive a manual but I can understand why people prefer them over manual if they consider (and most do) cars to be purely utilitarian tools to get from one point in space to another with the least amount of hassle.