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Wikio
Get exclusive travel deals and book discount cheap flights
Comments from an AP history
and government teacher in Raleigh, NC.
e-mail betsynewmark AT gmail.com
Commissions earned from selling items through Amazon will go towards buying materials for my classes. Thank you.
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Monday, May 07, 2007
Sarkozy's win
WIth the victory of Nikolas Sarkozy yesterday in France, analysts are wondering if he will be able to change the trajectory of France towards a completely disfunctional economy. John Fund is cautiously optimistic.Mr. Sarkozy acknowledges he is now part of the elites of French society, but he pledges he will govern in a way that is beyond their interests. "If I'm elected," he told reporters before yesterday's balloting, "it won't be the press, the polls, the elites. It will have been the people." His clearest break with much of French elite opinion came last week when he made a dramatic speech about a "moral crisis" the nation entered in 1968, when the "moral and intellectual relativism" embodied by the 1968 student revolt that helped topple President Charles de Gaulle from power the next year. Today, many philosophers and media commentators routinely pay homage to "the élan of 1968" and lament that the revolutionary spirit of the time did not succeed in transforming bourgeois French society more than it did.Mark Steyn is not as optimistic and thinks that perhaps France has passed a point of no return. He cites the out-migration almost half a million young French people to England so that they can have more of a chance to pursue a career, something that is increasingly problematic in France where the choices are mostly between working for the government or being on welfare. Steyn reminds us that there have been two groups of youths rioting in France recently: there are the immigrant young men who rioted and still regularly burn cars in protest of not being able to find work. And there are the young university students who came out protesting over a proposal to lift a law in France that makes it impossible to fire a worker once hired. A simple proposal would have allowed an employer to fire an employee in the first two years. After that, you're stuck with the workers. And such a minor change brought students into the street - they don't want any change even if it might ultimately help to reduce unemployment by giving an employer some chance to not be saddled with deadbeat employees forever.
Mr. Sarkozy took on that '60s nostalgia. He labelled Ms. Royal and her supporters the descendants of the nihilists of 1968, and even appealed to France's "silent majority" to repudiate the false lessons of that period. He claimed that too many Royal backers continue to hesitate in reacting against riots by "thugs, troublemakers and fraudsters." He declared this Sunday's election would settle the "question of whether the heritage of May '68 should be perpetuated or if it should be liquidated once and for all."
It appears that Mr. Sarkozy may have found the ultimate "wedge" issue in France, judging by the solid margin he won many traditional working-class neighborhoods that normally support Socialist candidates. Mr. Sarkozy's triumph provides at least a chance that there will be a real debate on the role of the state in France's economy and, yes, even some discussion of whether France should be in perpetual conflict with America.As for those who remain, they're sick of crime and unemployment and on the whole could do with rather fewer Muslims on the streets, but they're not yet willing to give up on the economic protectionism and lavish social programs that lead, inexorably, to the crime and unemployment and a general economic and demographic decline leaving the nation dependent on mass immigration and accelerating Islamization.If Sarkozy tries to offer any practial reforms to cut back on all those welfare guarantees, expect more rioting in the streets. The real question will be if Sarkozy will take his mandate from the huge voting turnout in yesterday's election to hang tough in his efforts to yank France back from the edge of the cliff they're streaming towards.
In my recent book, whose title escapes me, I cite one of those small anecdotes that seems almost too perfect a distillation of Continental politics. It was a news item from 2005: A fellow in Marseilles was charged with fraud because he lived with the dead body of his mother for five years in order to continue receiving her pension of 700 euros a month.
She was 94 when she croaked, so she'd presumably been enjoying the old government check for a good three decades or so, but her son figured he might as well keep the money rolling in until her second century and, with her corpse tucked away under a pile of rubbish in the living room, the female telephone voice he put on for the benefit of the social services office was apparently convincing enough. As the Reuters headline put it: "Frenchman Lived With Dead Mother To Keep Pension."
Think of France as that flat in Marseilles, and its economy as the dead mother, and the country's many state benefits as monsieur's deceased mom's benefits. To the outside observer, the French give the impression they can live with the stench of death as long as the government benefits keep coming. If that's the case, the new president will have the shortest of honeymoons.Labels: France
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WIth the victory of Nikolas Sarkozy yesterday in France, analysts are wondering if he will be able to change the trajectory of France towards a completely disfunctional economy. John Fund is cautiously optimistic.
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WIth the victory of Nikolas Sarkozy yesterday in France, analysts are wondering if he will be able to change the trajectory of France towards a completely disfunctional economy. John Fund is cautiously optimistic.
Mr. Sarkozy acknowledges he is now part of the elites of French society, but he pledges he will govern in a way that is beyond their interests. "If I'm elected," he told reporters before yesterday's balloting, "it won't be the press, the polls, the elites. It will have been the people." His clearest break with much of French elite opinion came last week when he made a dramatic speech about a "moral crisis" the nation entered in 1968, when the "moral and intellectual relativism" embodied by the 1968 student revolt that helped topple President Charles de Gaulle from power the next year. Today, many philosophers and media commentators routinely pay homage to "the élan of 1968" and lament that the revolutionary spirit of the time did not succeed in transforming bourgeois French society more than it did.Mark Steyn is not as optimistic and thinks that perhaps France has passed a point of no return. He cites the out-migration almost half a million young French people to England so that they can have more of a chance to pursue a career, something that is increasingly problematic in France where the choices are mostly between working for the government or being on welfare. Steyn reminds us that there have been two groups of youths rioting in France recently: there are the immigrant young men who rioted and still regularly burn cars in protest of not being able to find work. And there are the young university students who came out protesting over a proposal to lift a law in France that makes it impossible to fire a worker once hired. A simple proposal would have allowed an employer to fire an employee in the first two years. After that, you're stuck with the workers. And such a minor change brought students into the street - they don't want any change even if it might ultimately help to reduce unemployment by giving an employer some chance to not be saddled with deadbeat employees forever.
Mr. Sarkozy took on that '60s nostalgia. He labelled Ms. Royal and her supporters the descendants of the nihilists of 1968, and even appealed to France's "silent majority" to repudiate the false lessons of that period. He claimed that too many Royal backers continue to hesitate in reacting against riots by "thugs, troublemakers and fraudsters." He declared this Sunday's election would settle the "question of whether the heritage of May '68 should be perpetuated or if it should be liquidated once and for all."
It appears that Mr. Sarkozy may have found the ultimate "wedge" issue in France, judging by the solid margin he won many traditional working-class neighborhoods that normally support Socialist candidates. Mr. Sarkozy's triumph provides at least a chance that there will be a real debate on the role of the state in France's economy and, yes, even some discussion of whether France should be in perpetual conflict with America.
As for those who remain, they're sick of crime and unemployment and on the whole could do with rather fewer Muslims on the streets, but they're not yet willing to give up on the economic protectionism and lavish social programs that lead, inexorably, to the crime and unemployment and a general economic and demographic decline leaving the nation dependent on mass immigration and accelerating Islamization.If Sarkozy tries to offer any practial reforms to cut back on all those welfare guarantees, expect more rioting in the streets. The real question will be if Sarkozy will take his mandate from the huge voting turnout in yesterday's election to hang tough in his efforts to yank France back from the edge of the cliff they're streaming towards.
In my recent book, whose title escapes me, I cite one of those small anecdotes that seems almost too perfect a distillation of Continental politics. It was a news item from 2005: A fellow in Marseilles was charged with fraud because he lived with the dead body of his mother for five years in order to continue receiving her pension of 700 euros a month.
She was 94 when she croaked, so she'd presumably been enjoying the old government check for a good three decades or so, but her son figured he might as well keep the money rolling in until her second century and, with her corpse tucked away under a pile of rubbish in the living room, the female telephone voice he put on for the benefit of the social services office was apparently convincing enough. As the Reuters headline put it: "Frenchman Lived With Dead Mother To Keep Pension."
Think of France as that flat in Marseilles, and its economy as the dead mother, and the country's many state benefits as monsieur's deceased mom's benefits. To the outside observer, the French give the impression they can live with the stench of death as long as the government benefits keep coming. If that's the case, the new president will have the shortest of honeymoons.
Labels: France
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