France

[eddhead]

I thouhg this was interesting, especially considering the upcoming elections. Would be curious to get the perspectives or our french-resident members.

http://select.nytimes.com/iht/2007/02/28/w...8globalist.html

[Pugwash]

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[eddhead]

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sorry... here is the text

You have to admire the straight lines in the French capital: Haussmann's avenues, the pollarded trees as stern as sentries, the relentless Rue de Rivoli. Stand at the Place de la Concorde or the Invalides and what you get is civilization as geometry. The perfection gets under your skin and you wonder if you'll always have Paris.

But French politics is another story, more crabwalk than linear exercise, more scuttling sidelong - a couple of meters forward here, one back there - than impetus toward a destination. There is movement, but seldom avowed and even more rarely celebrated.

Somewhere in its soul, it seems, France wants immobility.

Jacques Chirac, the outgoing president, understood that; he has delivered. A dozen years into his presidency it is still unclear whether he's really a man of the right or left. His love-hate relationship with capitalism had produced privatizations and hymns to the state in equal measure. The market remains a semi-dirty word.

Quietly, very quietly, France under Chirac has continued its long slither down the catwalk toward a market economy, followed ever since François Mitterrand tried and failed a quarter-century ago to borrow from the Soviet economic plan.

But the country's deities - the state, the functionary, the social model - and its demons - the entrepreneur, Anglo-Saxon capitalism, "neoliberal" competition - have not changed much for all that. France has a terrible, an irrational, fear of the very forces with which its leading global companies - L'Oréal, LVMH - live and thrive.

And here we are, less than two months from an election that, not before time, will usher into power a new generation, one for whom the Cold War was prologue, facing a seemingly perennial question: can this country whose global ambitions are oddly undiminished recover its vitality, its sense of purpose, its coherence?

The need is obvious enough. Opposition to the Iraq war will be Chirac's legacy, but it does not an invigorated national identity make. Take most measures - unemployment, growth, national debt - and France lags.

Beyond the numbers, as Edmund Phelps, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, suggested in a recent interview in Le Monde, lurks a troubling loss of "vital élan," the taste for change, and the readiness for intellectual challenge.

Unemployment, now at 8.8 percent, is the worst of inequalities. You feel that here - in the restive suburbs but also in young faces everywhere that look somehow numbed. While Germany, its longtime sidekick in capitalism with a Rhineland conscience, has absorbed 17 million East Germans, and Scandinavia has put people back to work without ripping out its safety net, France has merely tinkered with its failures.

Both of the leading presidential candidates, Nicolas Sarkozy on the center-right and Ségolène Royal on the center-left, are innovators in one critical sense. They do not hold the monarchical view of the presidency shared by Chirac and Mitterrand, two men who held themselves accountable only to a mystical idea of "La France."

Not so for Sarkozy the modernizer, who wants to imbue Parliament with greater powers, and not so for Royal the mother, who wants the far-flung French family to be represented in forms of direct democracy that would create new accountability. As president, it seems, each would descend from the heights.

That's positive; France has been trying to put the monarchy out of business for more than 200 years. But there the similarities end.

Sarkozy is attached to the Atlantic alliance, Royal less so. Sarkozy is drawn to the United States, although he's curbing his enthusiasm in the name of electability; Royal has all the de rigueur reservations about the American "hyperpower." It's hard to imagine her in Palo Alto.

Sarkozy, the upstart, is tempted to walk straight; Royal, a product of the best political schools, has the old crabwalk deeply bred in her. He's talking of circumventing the 35-hour week, streamlining cumbersome firing procedures and, odd notion, working more to earn more.

She wants to raise the minimum wage to fire consumption, that in turn will spur investment and output, but who pays for that and for much else is a mystery. Her strength seems to lie in the promise of a pain-free extraction of the French from their problems; she will take care of them, as the state always has.

"This is still a country that believes you build society from the state out," said André Glucksmann, a political philosopher. "The French are record holders when it comes to suspicion of liberalism. I believe Sarkozy wants to break with 30 years of a failed model preserved by left and right. But Royal never talks of painful measures or a crisis being needed for change."

She does occasionally talk approvingly of Tony Blair's reinvention of the British left, a nod to ideas most powerfully represented in her Socialist Party by former Finance Minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn. And Sarkozy, in the other direction, has taken to tipping his hat to the state and Gaullism. Each is reaching out.

Not fast enough, however, to arrest the rapid rise of François Bayrou, whose "social-economic" platform, avowedly mixing the best of left and right, of state and market, of competition and protection, of profit and solidarity, allows France to dream anew of the best of all possible Gallic worlds.

Bayrou has successfully triangulated the campaign. Whether he can triumph in it is another matter. A little bit of left and a little bit of right is what France has had for a long time. What it needs is a little bit of movement. At some level, more and more French people seem to be onto that.

France will always have a certain idea of itself. The perfect perspectives of the capital - the orb of the sun seen dead center through the Arc de Triomphe - declare that glorious notion.

But glory must be earned. It cannot be, or at least cannot forever be, an exercise in nostalgia. Getting reality and self-image more in line is what this election is really all about. Here's looking at you, Paris.

[olivia]

Is France’s Center Falling Apart?

by Doug Merrill

" On Jan. 31, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy visited a Paris shopping mall to win support for the center-right in upcoming elections. Within minutes, a group of youths -- most of North African background -- began hurling insults. Sarkozy, a potential presidential candidate, was chased until he reached a police station.

The school system is increasingly ill-adapted to the multicultural and multi-ethnic nation France has become. Underfunded universities are prompting an unprecedented brain drain. And the arrogance of the big political parties is alienating voters. A recent example is the government’s support of former Prime Minister Alain Jupp?, head of the ruling party, after his conviction on corruption charges.

With few public figures to respect, North African kids often figure they’ve nothing to lose if they join extremist movements. At the other end of the spectrum, plenty of native French are ready to ditch the old doctrines of moderation for something nastier. With regional elections due on Mar. 21 and 28, polls already are showing important gains for extremist parties -- and losses for the center-left and center-right coalitions that have long held the reins of power. Given the current climate in France, it’s hard to be surprised -- and hard not to be discouraged."

[Goochenbrau]

the entrepreneur, Anglo-Saxon capitalism, "neoliberal" competition

[ryyannon]

France?

What's that?

[Pugwash]

People in France are feeling that they wish they had better choices. Both sides are disliked, but the alternatives are the fascists (Front National) or the communists. Oh, and Sarkozy isn't really as down-the-middle as he's portrayed out of France.

[eddhead]

People in France are feeling that they wish they had better choices. Both sides are disliked, but the alternatives are the fascists (Front National) or the communists. Oh, and Sarkozy isn't really as down-the-middle as he's portrayed out of France.

unfortunetly, national poltical preferences tend to act like slow moving pendulums swinging from right to center to left. It is almost as if the population needs to experience the effect of extremism before they collectively decide to slam on the brakes and move back to the center. But it take time. Sometimes you really need to screw things up for the correction to occur.

For the US In the 70's Nixon begat Carter who begat Regan/Bush who begat Clinton who begat Bush.

Conservative disaster, left of center deisaster, right wing sucess, right wing failure left of center but morally challenged, right wing solid chrisian and ....?

Not necessarily my interrpetation, but that is how the population at large feels..

We tend to over react to that which put us off in the previos admn. It should be interesting to see what 08 brings,.

[Pugwash]

unfortunetly, national poltical preferences tend to act like slow moving pendulums swinging from right to center to left.

If this is really the case (and it's not at all what's going on in France) then how come presidents get re-elected?

[olivia]

Oh...Come on PW...you are smarter than that. The period of the pendulum is greater than the presidents' term.

[Pugwash]

Oh...Come on PW...you are smarter than that. The period of the pendulum is greater than the presidents' term.

Were Reagan and HW that different?

ps. I believe in a mild pendulum affecting some politics, but you can only vote for the options put before you.

[Goochenbrau]

Were Reagan and HW that different?

Yes. Although they were both Republicans, their ideologies, concentrations, and experiences were much different.

Plus, Ive never seen Reagan with a Panerai

[olivia]

Oh...no....you answered THAT question.( I agree with you, but was not about to get into a debate over the differences between the two.)

[eddhead]

Were Reagan and HW that different?

ps. I believe in a mild pendulum affecting some politics, but you can only vote for the options put before you.

i believe they were. Reagan was far more classically a conservative than Bush was. A strong believer in minimalist government, Reagan was the purveyor of the tactics Junior is deploying today vis-a-vis small govt. Raise spending, especially military spending, lower taxes and creat a paradimn where social entitlement programs are crowded out but virtue of an inability to fund. It is classic.

In many ways, HW was far more moderate. Remember he raised taxes and in so doing began the cycle of moving toward a balanced budget. I have always felt that by raising taxes HW did a lot of the dirty work for Regan and in fact preserved his legacy. I am not sure what would have happened if HW did not bring some fical responsibility back to the budget process..i.e. not sure if Regan would have been perceived in the favorable light he was. In some ways, I think he bailed his predecessor out.

Geopolitcally they differed as well. Bush was much more of a globalist and was actually the first president to propose economic Globalization policies. He never did get the effort off the ground but it was his idea. By contrast, despite the success with the USSR, Regan was more of an isolationist in the classical conservative mode at least initally at least until Irangate came to pass.

Even if you do not buy into the difference, ultimately however the pendulum did back... it just took a bit longer. HW was a one term president afterall...almost a caretaker. And you do not get much different than Regan or Bush and Clinton.

Let's also not forget what happens in Congress at off-year election cycles. With the exception of 2002, the president's party almost always takes a beating.

as far as france is concerned, i agree with you that that is not what we are seeing today. I have some theories about France and for that matter Germany, but I am not close enough to the situation to vette them here which is why I was asking for input.

[eddhead]

Here is anothe op-ed piece I read in the back in June 2005. It comes from Admin Friedman a favorite of mine.

When I first read it, I remember thinking that in a way it is too bad... I have always admired the work/life balance of the European community.. I always felt they had thier proirites in the right order. But given the pace of globalization I just do not see how those same countries, especially the French, can those same countries to rationalize the balance they so treasure on one hand with their desire to attain the kind of Global influence they aspire to. Afetall, Geopolitical influenced is always fueled by economic strength and stability

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It was extremely revealing traveling from Europe to India as French voters (and now Dutch ones) were rejecting the E.U. constitution -- in one giant snub to President Jacques Chirac, European integration, immigration, Turkish membership in the E.U. and all the forces of globalization that are eating away at Europe's welfare states. It is interesting because French voters are trying to preserve a 35-hour work week in a world where Indian engineers are ready to work a 35-hour day. Good luck.

Voters in ''old Europe'' -- France, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy -- seem to be saying to their leaders: stop the world, we want to get off; while voters in India have been telling their leaders: stop the world and build us a stepstool, we want to get on. I feel sorry for Western European blue collar workers. A world of benefits they have known for 50 years is coming apart, and their governments don't seem to have a strategy for coping.

One reason French voters turned down the E.U. constitution was rampant fears of ''Polish plumbers.'' Rumors that low-cost immigrant plumbers from Poland were taking over the French plumbing trade became a rallying symbol for anti-E.U. constitution forces. A few weeks ago Franz M