France at a political crossroads

Great Debates
41

I’m not sure that Le Pen’s supporters particularly care about Sarkozy being of Hungarian or Jewish heritage.

France soaked up a heck of a lot of people from Italy, Spain, Russia, Eastern Europe who consider themselves thoroughly French. France did not mind that type of immigration as they have long been trying to build up their population.

What they don’t like is people who live in ghettos, and they are not keen on large numbers of people coming in from North and Sub Saharan Africa.

There was a discussion between Le Pen and a guy of Moroccan descent who on the surface had gone through a rough time. He had gone to France as a kid, gone to Sweden to do (IIRC) an MBA and gone to the UK to work - he is one of the people the media drag up as a paradigm example.

At the end of the conversation Le Pen asked him ‘Are you French or a Foreigner’, there was a long pause, then the guy replied ‘French’.

The killer was that the guy had dual nationality, he held a French and a Moroccan passport, which Le Pen obviously knew. He was trying to point out that the guy was not unreservedly French. I heard this on the BBC, I think they considered that it encapsulated Le Pen’s position. Around the same time they said that French villages were scouring towns and cities for families with a load of children - as below a certain number of pupils, the local school would close, and it seems that is about the worst thing for any local administrator.

The ‘abstention’ stuff looks as if, by distancing himself from Sarkozy, then Bayrou’s supporters might not unreservedly support Royal.

42

Basically Le Pen is a highly antagonistic candidate. His position is that there are no other valid candidates, and that both Royal and Sarkozy simply represent an equivalent continuity of the existing power structure. Blanc-bonnet, bonnet-blanc, so he recommends abstention. The other candidates are happy with this, because support from Le Pen might be seen as a bad thing. Le Pen’s party, Front National, has no presence in the Assemblée or in regional governments (his vote is geographically dispersed), so he has no long-term bargaining power.

On the other hand, Sarkozy has been actively courting Le Pen’s voters, the nationalist, ‘French-identity’, and fear voters. Where previous center-right candidates have carefully skirted this demographic for fear of alienating the moderates, Sarkozy has been much more open about it.

The Bayrou situation is somewhat more complicated - he’s a desirable ally for both Royal and Sarkozy. He’s not a ‘black sheep’ and does have some sway in the Assemblée and local governments. Royal has openly engaged with Bayrou (televised debate a couple of days ago, and rumors that he may join her government if she’s elected), where Sarkozy has (as is is style) adopted an antagonistic position towards him, trying to break Bayrou’s power base, supposedly offering juicy jobs in the coming government to the députés (reps) who come over to his side.

This election has a strong flavor of Bush vs. Kerry, Sarkozy is a divisive, antagonistic candidate, but pretty good on TV, where Royal has a better chance of achieving consensus and change, but is a boring speaker, and doesn’t come across as confident.

If you ask people which candidate they hope will win, it’s evenly divided - if you ask which candidate they expect will win, Sarkozy is way ahead.
NB Sarkozy is not a Jew, he’s a Catholic, and makes a point of his church visits. Inasmuch as there’s any kind of ethnic religious slant to the parties in France, the right (Sarkozy - UMP) tends to be white catholic, and the left (Royal - Socialiste) tends to be diverse. Sarkozy has tried to upset this dichotomy a little more than previous candidates, but so far hasn’t had much success.

43

Election tomorrow – getcher last licks in!

44

Looks like Sarkozy won, and by a fairly respectable margin.

45

Indeed, and one of the first things he said was that the USA could count on the support of France and one of the first things he was going to do was improve relations between both countries.

46

Sounds good to me. I also suspect he was elected mostly because Socialism in France has been a big failure. The country is in desperate need of some good old-fashioned capitalist reform.

So… In major elections in the past couple of years, Canada, Germany, and France have all turned to the right. Interesting.

47

While it is true they have turned to the right, it seems to me it is not as much as a rightist in America would like.

48

And vice versa…i.e. the French (even the French ‘right’) aren’t exactly big fans of the US either. :stuck_out_tongue: Thats because frankly ‘left’ and ‘right’ mean different things in Europe as opposed to their meaning here in the US.

-XT

49

France is actually in pretty good shape, their public services work well, their health care is reputed to be the best in the world. Their industry appears to be running fine.

They have problems with immigration, ghettos and graduates getting their first job.

I saw an amusing cartoon a few days ago, there were two fish tanks, in one two sharks were tearing away at each other in a frenzy, it was labeled USA/UK capitalism. In the other a mother dolphin and a baby dolphin were swimming peacefully - it was labeled European capitalism.

I doubt that Sarkozy will do anything particularly radical.

50

Well, that’s putting an interesting spin on France’s economy…

France is lagging well behind the rest of the EU in economic growth, and WAY behind the U.S. France has unemployment rates close to 10% - Bush was getting pilloried in the press here for unemployment rates half of that amount. Even worse, the young people in France have unemployment rates well into the mid 20% range - due mostly to idiotic job rules that make it virtually impossible to fire someone - which makes it much harder to hire someone without a track record. Even worse yet, France only has an employment rate of 60% - due to welfare, retirement, and unemployment, fully 40% of France’s adult population is not in the work force.

France has one of the higher budget deficits and public debts in Europe, and has violated the EU stability and growth pact three times in the past 5 years. France’s share of employees that work in the public sector is almost double that of Germany’s, and almost 3 times higher than the EU average. France’s big state-controlled auto companies are all hurting, and producing some of the most unreliable cars in the world. The entrepreneurial class has been almost smothered under a blanket of regulations. France’s military manufacturers are hurting because of lack of French investment in its own military, forcing it stay afloat by selling arms to a number of dangerous clients including Iran.

By all measures, France’s economy is stumbling. We’re in the middle of a global economic boom, and France isn’t taking part in it. That means the French are going to continue to see their standard of living decline in comparison to the rest of the world, which will lead to even more social unrest. And a country in which setting auto fires is the national pastime does not need more social unrest.

51

One of the most telling things is the number of young French workers in London nowadays. French people coming to live in Britain! It’s supposed to be the other way round. Sarkozy even made a campaign stop in London.

A nitpick, though - Renault has not been state controlled for years, and is doing just fine. The other big french maker Peugeot-Citroen is a private company too.

52

:dubious: Can I get a cite from you for this fantastic statement? Every indication I’ve seen shows quite the opposite. Why do you suppose they had all those riots last year if things are going peachy keen in the socialist utopia of France??

Um…you realize that these issues directly relate to why French industry is NOT doing well. Right? If the French economy is booming, as you seem to be saying (well ‘running fine’) then where are the jobs for those immigrants? For those graduates looking for their first job? Why is their unemployment so bad if things are ‘running fine’? Hell, why do they HAVE ghettos if their public services and health care are ‘reputed to be the best in the world’???

-XT

53

Well this is not going to be much of a cite, but a friend of mine moved there in 2002 and I’ve visited him a number of times.

Compared with the UK the infrastructure looks very good, prices are a lot lower and the standard of living appears pretty good.

The ghetto problem is largely down to Moslem immigrants (and second generation) who reputedly scare off other people. Put crudely those guys are not very employable.

The French have very strong employment laws, it is difficult to sack people so they go to great efforts to avoid employing people. This is not dissimilar to Germany. It results in high productivity per employee.

Last years riots were because Chirac was proposing removing job security for young workers. Quite correctly, young workers and wanna be workers smelt a rat, they want to get in on the benefits of the system, not get hired and fired in McJobs.

Unemployment figures are subject to manipulation. The real UK unemployment is far higher than the official figures. We have huge numbers who are unable to work for ‘health’ reasons. Also the ratio of people working in the public sector (@Sam Stone) depends on the structure of the economy. The French government does not seem as fond of outsourcing to the private sector - realistically it does not matter if people are employed directly by the government - or indirectly by the government.

France does not particularly want or need immigrants, especially illegals.

I think that the USA gets a bad press on France. In the UK we get a slightly different view as we go there and our journalists tend to have holiday homes out there.

54

Doesn’t it? What about the “birth dearth” and the “grayby boom”? If the French won’t breed fast enough to replace themselves and keep the population stable, don’t they need immigrants, to work and pay the taxes to support the generation in retirement?

55

Yes they do. France’s natural birthrate is WAY below replacement. Without major immigration, France will suffer a demographic collapse.

Unfortunately, France has a terrible structure for inducing immigration. Generous social programs entice the poor. Extremely high barriers to entry into the job market discourage working immigrants. And France’s culture is somewhat insular, which also discourages the ‘right’ kind of immigrants (people who want to work and assimilate into the culture).

France can turn the ship around, but the combination of a massive social welfare state and high regulation, coupled with the need for many immigrants to keep the economy afloat, has caused a serious problem.

56

:confused: That bit seems . . . counterintuitive. How would an “insular” culture discourage those most eager to assimilate to it?

57

What I mean is that an insular culture acts as a barrier to people who are looking for a new country to call their own. Japan has the same problem. The language is a barrier, the culture is a barrier, and so people do not move there to become ‘Japanese’. They might move there if a job takes them there, or if they want to take advantage of some other feature of the country, but very few go there with the desire of becoming part of Japanese culture.

58

I’m not sure that I’d compare France to the other two.

The Parti Socialiste last won the Presidency in 1988, and lost the last legislative elections (in 2002) rather badly. Sarkozy is in the ruling UMP, so it would be (assuming changes do occur) more like a change in factional control within a party than the opposition takeovers in Canada and (though, due to their participation in a grand coalition with the SPD, not quite as great) Germany.

59

The French still have the ‘Policie Maternale’ - basically bribing people to have kids.

For some strange reason they don’t seem to like freeloaders with zero skills.

I assume that you have studied some economics, it looks to me as if you have had a similar indoctrination as myself - albeit in a different place

An aging population is not that much of a problem - when people get old or inefficient they can die.

As we get mechanically more efficient, we require fewer ‘warm bodies’ to keep up mechanical production - there is also a tendency for smart people to move into the ‘service industries’ which are IMO 90% froth - a sign of surfeit.

We don’t really need immigrants - and Europe could easily live with a declining population.

60

Just to dispel some disinformation - France has one of the highest birthrates in Europe, second only to Ireland. The French birthrate has increased since the publication of this BBC article.