French election commentary
Well, given the excitement in the news about the forthcoming French elections I suppose I had better start passing commenting on the contenders and the general political situation. Since I’m far from being an expert on French politics, the occasional entries will be either brief, or interspersed with irrelevant commentary in an attempt to make them look more substantial than they really are.
The two leading contenders are Nicolas Sarkozy, leaning broadly to the right, and Segolene Royal, waving the red flag for the left. They are each trying to project a ‘young and energetic, new blood’ type of image, with varying success. Both appear to be very intelligent. These facts would suggest a promising future for France, whoever wins. Current polls suggest Sarkozy has a small lead.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that the French economy is besieged with problems of overspending and over-bureaucracy, over-protective employment rights, unions that strike at the drop of a hat, high taxation, and more or less with anything that impedes growth and employment. So any winner needs first to recognise, and second to tackle these problems.
Sarkozy appears to be the most suitable contender. He is planning to cut taxes and social contributions, among other things, to give a boost to the economy. Royal, on the other hand has announced her plans, and here I quote a couple of them from the Economist magazine that flops through my letterbox every Saturday: increase the minimum wage to 10 euros per hour; increase unemployment benefit to 90% of the previous salary earned; renationalise the French gas and electricity companies (EDF and GDF).
Now, I’m no expect, but talking about how much money you will give to people, without explaining the tricky problem of where the money will come from, hints rather at vote buying than a carefully planned policy.
I would guess that almost every economics student in the modern world recognises that open markets, free competition, a free employment market and so on are the best ways to allow an economy to develop. Otherwise it simply becomes impossible for a country to be competitive with their neighbours (or with developing countries), as debt mounts up and unemployment increases.
But Royal offers none of that, and it is not clear whether Sarkozy can deliver it. Nothing personal against him - I doubt if any living person could achieve what needs doing. It makes Margaret Thatcher’s job 30 years ago look positively straightforward. So I have a disturbing suspicion that France needs Royal to win, to push France into the abyss, and create the possibility of reform.
Hopefully I’m wrong, but I thought i’d best make a start on my own little manifesto, for the 2014 ‘resurrection’ elections. First items are:
- NO social charges on new businesses during the first two years of operating (to encourage new business)
- Unemployment benefits to be reduced by 25% (so that people are motivated to work)
- New recruits can be dismissed for poor performance within six months of starting a new job (to stop employers being terrified to employ someone because they can’t get rid of them later)
- An independent management consultancy body to review all government departments, with the immediate goal of reducing bureacracy and civil servant costs by at least 25% (trust me, there is a lot of unnecessary form-filling!)
- A substantial overhaul of pensions and the health system to reduce future liabilities
So that’s enough to be getting started, I’m sure I will have ironed out the fine details in seven years time. A vote for Boris is a vote for France!
