It’s pretty easy to mock the French government right now. Sébastien Lecornu was prime minister for barely a month. By the time he named all the members of his cabinet, it collapsed fourteen hours later and broke another record of shortest-lived French governments.

Lecornu’s immediate predecessor had lost a confidence vote over his budget proposals and the “Block Everything” social movement that opposed them. Lecornu fared no better. He was just the latest in line—eighth to be exact—of prime ministers under President Emmanuel Macron whose legitimacy is disappearing as quickly as members of his party. Then parliament had a sense of déjà vu when Macron promptly reappointed Lecornu as prime minister. How long the Lecornu II government will last is anyone’s guess.

The American press is right to call it political chaos, crisis, deadlock, disarray, impasse, turmoil, so on and so on. Yet never has the expression about people in glass houses throwing stones been more appropriate. Members of the Congress have shut the United States government down once again.

While both the French and American political circumstances stem from fights over the national budget in their respective legislatures, only the US government actually shut down. This curtails services provided by Federal agencies as well as the pay of their employees. Members of Congress, ironically, still get paid even when they don’t work toward a compromise or anything else.

In France, however, the government continues to operate and public employees still get paid for their work while political battles play out. That doesn’t mean France can continue to ignore its budget approval process. But the country’s public service and citizens are not hostage to any party’s political scores. Meanwhile the US is on its eleventh government shutdown in history, the last three of which have been under Donald Trump. And like the situation in France, the end of the US government shutdown is anyone’s guess.

Americans can blame the shutdown on whomever they want but it might help instead to look to how other countries face a budgetary crisis. The French government is definitely in one, but at least it’s still open. And though Americans don't have a parliamentary system, they could still demand the impeachment—a vote of no confidence of sorts—of any president or lawmaker willing to shut the US government down. In the very least, they shouldn’t think their political leaders are somehow more righteous than French ones.

Benjamin Franklin is credited with publishing a variation of “people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” The origins of the adage trace back even further to the 14th century to Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde. Written in Middle English, the poem uses the word of French origin for glass, verre, since it rhymed with werre, also from Old French meaning war or conflict: “And for-thy, who that hath an heed of verre, Fro cast of stones war him in the werre!” Flash forward to the 20th century, Billy Joel released an album titled Glass Houses whose cover featured the singer about to throw a stone at a glass house, his own in fact. (The album also features a song in French, C’était toi.) The original message about hypocrisy may have given way to one about real danger.

Indeed, throwing proverbial stones has already gotten Americans, Democrats and Republicans alike, into enough serious trouble. Perhaps it’s time for them to build a more solid house than one made of glass.