French Life-expat France

Well, after months of uncertainty and years of stagnation, France has chosen Sarkozy to be the new president. Congratulations France, congratulations Sarkozy!

‘Together, everything is possible’ (ensemble, tout devient possible) was the motto on which the campaign was based. An attractive little phrase, but only time will tell whether France really want to pull together to become more competitive, and return to their rightful place as a growing, leading economy.

I suspect that ‘divided, everything is pretty complicated’ might be closer to the mark, because there is a lot of hostility to M Sarkozy and his grand plans.

France has an enormous state presence and the number of civil servants has continued to grow under Chirac at an unbelievable rate ( 1 million new fonctionnaires in the past 10 years if memory serves). Sarkozy has said he will reverse this trend. This I think will lead to more strikes than even France has known before, since state employees have extensive employment rights that they will be very keen to protect.

The 35 hour week is holding back growth - quite simply, the French work less than most other western countries. Sarkozy has promised to make this a minimum - so that people can work more ‘if they want to’ - and they will not be taxed on additional earnings from overtime. Again, trouble in the offing when the 35 hour week is threatened.

I was quite dismayed during the campaign to hear the lines of argument followed by Segolene Royal. When Sarkozy suggested everyone should work 40 years before being entitled to full pension (because France, like other countries, needs to avoid serious pension funding issues) she pointed out that some people (state employees?) worked very hard and 37 years was enough. Fine suggestion but doesn’t resolve the problem.

Likewise, there was a recent deplorable attack on a French police lady. Unfortunately, a proposal that all female fonctionnaires should be accompanied after dark does not have the feel of a practical or workable solution. And as Mrs B pointed out - why just government employees? Are they at greater risk than every other female in the land?

The list continues but the theme was the same - while Sarkozy was promising grand reforms and a way forward for the state, Mrs Royal gave the impression of shallow vote-buying - lets raise the minimum wage, lets be generous to pensioners, lets not reduce the number of state employees etc etc. All these grand plans were to be funded by reducing wastage (gaspillage) although it never semed to be clear where such enormous amounts of gaspillage could be found without being tough on someone, somewhere.

Anyway, for all that, about 48% of people in France voted for her - pensioners, government employees, people on the minimum wage presumably constituted a large part of that vote. There is fear about what lies ahead on the ‘tout devient possible’ route, and Mrs Royal avoided that path.

So time will tell but France can wake this morning with a new enthusiasm and hope for the future. And I for one am very pleased.