I tend to agree with Chang that American mutual fund investors enjoy much lower fees and much more transparency than European investors.  I was doing some research on French mutual funds for a friend and learned that they all are, appaarently, sold with high loads if the customer buys them through his bank, which most investors do.

But I was told by a sales rep of an independent French mutual fund company that if customers bought his funds directly from the fund company itself, the loads were waived.  However, when I asked him if the fund managers invested in their own funds he was completely dumbfounded and couldn't even answer my question which, to me was pretty basic.

I have found what seems to be a better deal for French investors: the plethora of ETF's that are currently available and known by the French word trackers.  One company, Lyxor, seems to be the leader in the field.

I should add that Morningstar has a French portal [http://www.morninstar.fr] where investors can get the same type of data about mutual funds as their American counterparts; the site uses Morningstar's star rating system. 

I also posted on another thread that Ken Heebner's fund company is also owned by Natixis.

Jagor