# France at a political crossroads **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 23, 2007, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/france-at-a-political-crossroads/401230 "2007-04-23T01:05:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 71
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2007, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/france-at-a-political-crossroads/401230/71 "2007-05-13T17:46:17Z")
[QUOTE=FRDE] @ **Sam Stone** I look at things from a British perspective. France’s GDP is deflated compared with that of the UK - that is because the £ is grossly overvalued. [/quote] International GDP figures are not stated in local currency. Your point makes no sense. > [@](#): > > France produces more GDP per hour than the UK - they are more efficient. No they aren’t. According to the [Global Economic Forum](http://www.weforum.org/en/fp/gcr_2006-07_highlights/index.htm), France’s competitiveness ranking is 18th. The U.K. is at 10. France has higher worker productivity, but this is not necessarily a good thing. Did you know that worker productivity tends to go up during a recession? When companies can’t afford to hire workers, the ones they do have are forced to work harder. France’s difficult job market may have also driven companies away from labor and towards more automation and towards less labor-intensive industries, which also makes the per-worker productivity figures look better. But the bottom line is that France is uncompetitive, its economy is stagnating, unemployment is around 10%, and [Gross National Income](http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_gro_nat_inc_percap-gross-national-income-per-capita#source) (a measure of how much in salary French workers make on average) is only $22,751- 15th in the world, compared to the UK’s 24,486 - 9th in the world. A few years ago, France the UK were virtually identical. Now the UK is pulling up into the top 10 countries, and France is stagnating. > [@](#): > > To make judgements on the basis of international competitiveness is very dangerous, there is no way in which one can compete with places like China and India - trying to do so is pointless. Huh? India is ranked at 43. China isn’t even in the top 50. What makes you think it’s impossible to compete with these countries? They have cheap labor, but in every other category they lag tremendously. France is far more competitive than either of those countries. > [@](#): > > From observation the cost of living in France is a lot lower than the UK, and that is not just because of the overvalued £. Are you factoring in the cost of having your car burned? 🙂 More seriously, any comparison of things like rents and costs of goods has to compare the prices in comparison to taxes, since people pay for all these things with after-tax income. If Britons keep 10% more of their income, they can pay 10% more for all their goods and still come out ahead. Britain collects 36.1% of all income in taxes. France is at 43.7%. Incidentally, the Heritage Foundation’s [index of economic freedom](http://www.weforum.org/en/fp/gcr_2006-07_highlights/index.htm) has France at 45th in the world. The UK is at 6th. As long as that continues, France’s economy will continue to lag Europe’s, and that in turn is going to lead to more social unrest. BTW, here’s the group of countries France is in for Economic freedom: The Slovak Republic Latvia Malta Portugal Hungary **France** Jamaica Panama Malaysia Mexico Thailand Here’s the equivalent group for the UK: Hong Kong Singapore Australia United States New Zealand **United Kingdom** Ireland Luxembourg Switzerland Canada Which group would you rather be in? > [@](#): > > At present France seems to be doing pretty well, as older people drop out of the labour force there are plenty of people eager to take their places. So many of them that over 20% can’t find jobs. So many that 500,000 young French people have moved to the UK to find work. In short, France isn’t lacking for young people right now - it’s lacking the regulatory environment that will allow them to find work. When your laws are so severe that employers see workers as liabilities instead of assets, you aren’t going to create jobs. > [@](#): > > In the UK we have had a massive influx of immigrants, most are doing McJobs, reportedly a lot of them have brought young children with them which is putting pressure on our Local Government services - from an aesthetic point of view, I like the influx of Polish lasses, but I’m not sure that we are getting much net contribution. So France, which is seeing its own young people leave the country in search of work, is better than the UK, which has immigrants streaming in to take on actual jobs. And by the way, since when are ‘McJobs’ not valuable? As opposed to say, living in a ghetto, being unemployed, and burning cars for sport? --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/france-at-a-political-crossroads/401230)._