France

Dear Sir,

What a good debate! At last we have “a good patriot” in the room…(no more French bashing from the perfidious Albion…). Dear Mr. Klau, I am ashamed to dare criticize my country after such a good “plaidoyer” for France political leadership.

Now allow me to say that you give the best argument to the people who love France and enrage to see that nothing move in this country. “France's leaders will then have no choice but to administer their country a highly painful reformist electro-shock. Clearly, both the Parti Socialiste and the UMP wish that this moment never comes—and given France's history of violent protest and occasional insurrection, that hope is understandable.” No that hope is not understandable, it maintains the French people in a state of “denial”, we refuse to see the reality. After all several welfare state governments have changed their policy toward less public transfer and more competitiveness (Germany, Sweden, Canada, UK, Spain, Slovakia and others) and their social model is not worse than the French one. We don’t have lucid, courageous and able political leaders to say the truth to the Frenchs. It is true that Mr. Schroeder paid a high price for its courage. So if one candidate knows what we should do (Sarkozy, the other does not want to change a model based on public expenditure which serves so well its clients (the civil servants), he does not do it for fear of not antagonizing “la gauche”.

P. Manière explanation is brilliant this is the élite’s fault. He is right in a country where the frontier between entrepreneur (a French word) and public employees is blurred. We have “capitalist-fonctionnaires” (in France you can enjoy job security as public employees and move to the private sector without risks, keeping all your “avantages acquis” (big perks).

Now in my view, one explanation is missing with P. Manière, we (the Frenchs) are more responsible than the politicians. Politicians follow public opinion and public opinion is leftist in France. Nothing to do with social ideals, but more with more Etat, solving all problems with public expenditure and financing them taxing the banks and the rich. This policy has a limit, the limit is the stock of public debt and the tax ratio which has to be paid by the middle class (I suppose that the wealthy may prefer to go to UK to work and retire to be taxed at 45% than to France to enjoy a marginal tax rate of 75% (I predict strong growth for French restaurants, wine, fromages, and bakeries in London…).

So the question to raise in my view, is why “In France's presidential election (not only presidential election),…a good third of the electorate votes for the far right or the far left” (Klau) and if I may add why the socialist candidate as Mr. Hollande (a respectable man, but old left which does not understand the word reduction in public expenditure and proposes to balance the budget through tax increase (increase in social tax on labour which will increase unemployment in a country with 10% unemployment rate), may win at the second round. Incidentally, France has a tax ratio of 51% of GDP (in 2011) against 37% in UK (14 point of percentage gap). And the socialists want more…Where are they living?

In my view, French education shares a lot of responsibility in the French “denial” behaviour. Economics is taught but with ideology against the world of business, profit is a dirty word, entrepreneur (a French word) is a capitalist whose only objective is to suck the blood of ouvriers, the law of supply and demand is replaced by “rights”. This romantic ideology is the result of a French education given by professors who live out of the reality and are confused by simplistic socialist ideology. So we have the politicians we deserve and if these politicians implement what they say, we are in trouble or in decline.

Mr. Klau you finish your nice piece saying that it is not fair “to single out France's political leadership and… ignores the plain fact that many if not most other Western countries' politicians have failed their own voters ». Yes, you may be right, but this is of little consolation for a French, I don’t care about others’ failure, I do care about the future of France as a middle nation (able to travel, at least, business class!). I am convinced that France is today at a crossroad and cannot continue as you said, business as usual, its social model should be adjusted, and I prefer the job done by French leaders and backed by the French people rather than by the IMF or the troika…

Dear Sir,
It’s probably impossible to agree or disagree with this motion as there are at least two France: one that was built on fear , distrust and that is heir of the St Thomas of Aquinus: renounce to your freedom and to your right to test ideologies in the real life, adhere to my ideology and I will take care of you. This is the socialist and communist France. About 90% of teachers, civil servants and workers from the public sector, journalists share this ideology. If you work in the public Medias or in the educational system you carrier is not base of your value but on what unions that are all deeply involved in the left and extreme left t ideology will decide. In the same way energy, transportation and many economic sectors are in the hands of the communists. This France doesn’t obey to the same rules than the other one. For instance the professional responsibility of a doctor is different when you work in the public sector or in the private sector and this are different courts with different laws that will examine the case. It’s easy to convict a private doctor and almost impossible to convict one who works in the public one. There is another France that is more or less what you can find in a democratic country. The question is that the France of the left want politicians that would be a kind of heaven-sent man who would solve all their problems. In a world where nobody owns the truth, where sometimes there is no truth at all and where everything is complex this cannot work. Almost no politician in France has any ability to manage a complex system. None of them has any experience in that kind of situation. They are men of words and their major asset is their ability to debate and manipulate people. There are very few politicians who have a real experience in the civil world. Maybe it’s not so different anywhere else but French have chosen to give to those people an immense power. It’s where the difference is.

Dear Sir,

I believe that there is a fundamental flaw in the thinking by both parties in this debate. The assumption here is that the cause of the 2008 financial crisis was a result of deregulation on the part of the American government. This may have contributed to the problem. However, it is much more likely a cause of targeted government action, which created incentives for these large banking and housing corporations to approve housing loans for those who would not otherwise qualify. By sending these false incentives to these businesses, short term economic gain was achieved (and was necessary for competition) and so people who should not have been approved for a loan were. Artificial interest rate control by the Federal Reserve did not help the matter. It is not the free market that caused the problem, but rather the government intervention into the free market. I think this understanding is necessary in order to put accurate blame for the crisis, not on private business, but on the United States government.

I am relieved that Mr. Klau is willing to admit some of the failures and deceptions by the French politicians. However, this debate is specifically about whether the French political class is failing France, it does not have anything to do with the political classes of Britain and the United States. It may be very true that the political classes of these countries are also failing them (which is likely) but this is not an adequate reason to shift blame away from Mr. Sarkozy and Mr Manière. Indeed, there is plenty to discuss when it comes to the failures of the American political system, but this is simply not the debate for that.

Dear Sir,

I will abstain from voting because, although the statement is correct, and few people would contest it, in my opinion it is a useless question to ask. That explains the lopsided counts against the con's. I do disagree with those that say that France's political class has failed more dramatically than any other political classes. Really? More than Italy's, for example? It is very difficult indeed to rank into an overall failure measurement when there are many different categories of failure, some of which Fance might have done better than others, and some worse. Instead of this "my failure is not as bad (big?) as yours" exchange we would be better off debating the merits of specific policies and whether over the long term they have been successful or not.

Dear Sir,
No, you can't blame politicians for giving the majority what they want: Probably the world's most generous social system and an omnipresent state that can be blamed for everything!
The problem is that France, unlike northern Europe, is rich and talented enough to afford it. The minority pay and the majority collect and vote for more!
It looks like this can go on for a while. To speed up the pain: I would vote Hollande, stop nuclear, tax the rich even more: That should do it and we can call in Thatcher.