What (if anything) is wrong with France?

Great Debates
1

Usually when I start a thread I have some idea of my position on the subject I’m asking. In this case I really don’t have any idea. I’ve been following the riots in France of course as I’m sure most have, and I have some idea whats causing them from other threads on this subject. But are there deeper problems in France than just unrest with imigrants/poor and unemployed? I don’t know so thought I’d come here for some views on the subject. I almost opened this in GQ, but thought it might be more of a debate than a factual answer.

Anyway, I was reading this article and this paragraph is what made me start this thread:

This of course could just be standard political double-speak I suppose…but what ‘deep national malaise’ and ‘identity crisis’ is gripping France? What are the causes? What can/should France do about it? Is it just France or is the rest of Europe in a similar grip? I have friends in the UK and they haven’t mentioned anything like that there (one of my friends is Irish in fact and practically gushes about how good things are there).

-XT

2

The malaise has to do with their racial, ethnic, and poverty issues, I’d guess. The identity crisis? Hmmm…I thought France always took extraordinary steps to maintain a distinct identity, i.e., language issues, etc. I have no idea where he’s going with that.

3

“How can anyone govern a nation that has 246 different kinds of cheese?”

Charles de Gaulle

4

Here are a few theories I have discussed with others recently…

Sarkozy wants Chirac’s job and won’t make it easy for him to solve the problem of unrest.

When the U.S. gets immigrants, these people usually come here for education. They are among the elite and find easy integration into our society. Muslim families are above median income in the U.S. In France, it is another story. These folks do not integrate into French society which is largely secular.

So the identity crisis is that France does not wish to be a melting pot. They wish to be French. Some of its immigrant populations want something else, and they are kept at the fringes. Though their poverty is not as abject as that of projects here in the U.S., they are held aloof from French culture and do not find social mobility.

5

This is a good point, although we do get plenty of unskilled immigrants-- they just don’t tend to come from Muslim countries. I’d also quibble on how easily the more educated Muslims integrate in US society. Easier? Yes. Easy? No.

6

An “Identity crisis” isn’t necessarily related only to immigrants. For instance you could mention the European Union, globalization, worries for the future of the french system (will I get my retirment pension?), everyday ordinary habbits, societal changes that aren’t specific to France, the usual “things didn’t use to be that way when I was a kid” factor, etc…

7

What about “malaise”? Seems like there would be some malaise found in the immigrant communities, but it sounds like he was talking about the general populace.

8

The fact that Jean-Marie Le Pen made it into the final round of voting a few years back probably also plays a role. As a conservative he is probably someone who wants to return France to the older France of 30-40 years ago, which means that large segments of French society feel there is something wrong with the direction French society it taking.

9

Would you say that the average French citizen feels that the way Europe is going (globalization I suppose) is wrong for France? Are they unhappy about the current level of government socialization…or are they unhappy because its not enough? Do they feel the country is drifting to the ‘right’ (Euro right)…or is that direction they wish it was going?

-XT

10

I would also add that there has simply been too much immigration into France. They need to severely curtail it so that they can assimilate the immigrants they currently have. The situation will continue to degenerate unless they curb immigration and arrest the social issues regarding assimilation.

11

It has been curtailed for a long time. Legal immigration from develloping countries is extremely low nowadays.

12

Admittedly looking from a long ways away, I’m not sure any assimilation is going to occur without an improvement in the economic (employment) situation. Even if immigrants feel accepted but are still unable to afford basic necessities, much less to aspite to affluency, then periodic riots will remain a probability.

France has 35 hour work weeks, long holidays and strong unions. It’s more difficult for French-based companies to compete internationally and with thin profits come a thin supply of good jobs, many of which are are instead part time.

If France wants societal changes to take root, they must first encourage economic invigoration.

13

Illegal immigration has not really been clamped down on though. Moreover, family reuinification is still a easy loophole that has been exploited.

14

Interesting article by Fareed Zakaria that speaks directly to the OP.

15

To (mis)quote an email that made me chuckle from CNN’s Cafferty File.

The only thing wrong with France is it’s full of French people. :stuck_out_tongue:

16

I’ll tell you what’s wrong with them. They took a perfectly good hunting dog – the mighty poodle – gave it a bad haircut and just generally wussified the poor beast. It’s as though they said, “Let’s see how close we can get to making this a cat while still calling it a dog.”

These wussified French poodles would have no chance of survival in the wild. I tell ya, there’s an animal that was just born to surrender.

17

Sarkozy does want Chirac’s job, but he also has a totally different opinion on how things ought to go. Frankly, the immigrant communities were lawless for a long time, and this was simply unacceptable anymore. More to the point, France simply doesn’t have the money to simply spoend their way out of the problem, and it’s rather unclear that they can simply borrow it.

18

France and Germany are what you get when your left-wing social policies get out of control. These countries are highly regulated, highly taxed, the people don’t work many hours, they get large amounts of mandated vacation time, and the strict worker regulations means that it’s very expensive to create jobs and once people have jobs they become lazy and inefficient.

As a result, you get stagnating economies and people who refuse to work for low pay, because they can do better on the dole or by legislating themselves higher pay. These countries have very low birthrates, which means they depend on immigration to keep their populations from collapsing. They also need immigrants to take on the dirty jobs they no longer want to do for themselves.

Combine that with a population in Franch that is remarkably racist and elitist, and you wind up with a large non-integrated immigrant population living off of government scraps, and doing the hard work the ‘better people’ won’t do. A generation or two down the road, and now you have their children who have no jobs at all. It’s a recipe for disaster

An example of the same kind of thing, but to a much lesser degree, can be seen in the U.S. with illegal immigration. The dirty secret of illegal immigration is that these people are rich people’s housekeepers, gardeners, nannies, and general laborers. The economy has grown depdendent on them, in part because other Americans are simply no longer willing to do those jobs.

If you took all the Mexicans coming into the U.S. and housed them in ghettos and left them segregated from the rest of society, I imagine you’d wind up with a pretty ugly problem in a generation or two. That’s where France is today.

But France is just the leading edge of a much bigger problem. Germany’s economy is moribund for much the same reasons, and the announced ‘fix’ is to increase taxes even more so the government can pay for more social spending. This is madness.

19

I’d amend this to say Americans and legal immigrants are no longer willing to do those jobs at the pay that is given to the illegals. The illegal immigrants are completely at the mercy of those who employ them at what is a poverty-level wage here but a useful amount of money in their homeland.

20

I think you’re all focusing too much on immigration in answering this question. Immigration plays a part, but it is by no means the sole, or even the major part of France’s problem. Britain has plenty of immigrants as well, and my recent experiences there show no signs of malaise.

France is hurting from its decreasing status on the world stage. Granted, people have been saying that since, oh, the end of WWII, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less true. Based on what I’ve read, the French are going through a serious identity crisis. They still think of themselves as a major world power, but they keep getting frustrated in their ambitions. They lead the protest against the war in Iraq, but in the end it didn’t make a whit of difference – who really cares what France thinks?, said the US, and went ahead and went to war anyways. Paris lobbied heavily for the Olympics, but at the last minute London (capital of the dreaded Anglo-Saxons) whisked the glory out from under their feet. The economy is stagnant. The native population is decreasing – and the gap is being filled by immigrants the ethnic French often don’t trust or care for (feelings that will no doubt worsen after the recent riots). Any “separate peace” France thought it bought with the Muslim world for opposing the war in Iraq has been shot to dust by the recent unrest and the protests over the head-scarf ban. There are increasing signs that the beloved welfare state is no longer economically feasible. The Americans and the British are rubbing their stronger economies in France’s nose. Fewer people worldwide are learning French (the governor of Tokyo recently said that France has failed as an international language, and was promptly sued). More people are learning English, particularly in the new EU accession countries – talk about a kick in the pants, them learning English, when Englad is itself only a half-assed EU member! France is the EU, in its own mind. The new members have also weakened France’s votes in EU matters. Agricultural farm subsidies are under attack from all sides. California wines are winning international competitions. French voters rejected the EU constitution (!!!) which was viewed as being too economically liberal. The Polish plumber is out to ruin us! Globalization will destroy everything that makes France France. Crime is up – or perceived to be up, regardless of what the facts may be. France is talking but nobody’s listening.

From what I’ve seen and the people I’ve talked to (and I should note that most of what I’ve written is based on what I’ve read from articles and books, and conversations with people – all of which may ultimately be misleading), it seems to be a particular problem in “Old Europe” – at least parts of it. I can say that all the Germans I’ve talked to in recent months are downright depressed about their country. These were mostly Germans I worked with recently in the UK; all of them told me they felt they had no future in their country, there were no jobs, Germany was heading for the shitter, etc. One girl told me that she would not want to bring children into the world if she were living in Germany! I would protest to these same people that Germany still looks extremely safe and prosperous when I go there (as I’m sure does France; I’ve just been to Germany more recently), and they say yes yes, BUT…and continue with a litany of everything that’s going wrong.

The people from “new Europe” that I’ve known have been on the whole much more optimistic. When I was in the UK I worked with a medley of Poles, Czechs, Slovakians, Latvians, etc., and even though most of them had come to the UK for better opportunities, they still were much more optimistic about their countries than the German expats I worked with. And as I mentioned before, the UK itself seemed to be doing fine as far as I could tell.

What can France do? I dunno, but I suspect they’re going to have to make some major changes to turn things around. Lighten up the welfare state to boost the economy. Take a stronger military stance on the international stage. Restrict immigration if it’s really so threatening to French identity – though if they do that, they’re going to have to find a way to boost the birth rate somehow, because they’re going to need all those little tax-payers. Pump money into their universities (by charging fees perhaps?) and do their best to attract the brightest minds in the world back to France. Be open to innovation. Make even better wine – Californians be damned! :slight_smile: