- (March 2006)
The French Republic on the brink again.
This time it was not just a few thousand of young vandals. This time
millions of French people marched in the streets. The rest of the world
has a hard time understanding what the fuss is all about: an apparently
harmless law about giving employers more freedom to fire employees.
(Much more liberal laws exist in almost all countries of the world).
But this time the number of people who mobilized is large enough that one
cannot deny anymore "who" is the subject of the repeated crises in France:
the French public opinion.
The malaise first surfaced in 2002, when a right-wing extremist, Jean-Marie
LePen, received more votes than anyone else except Chirac. Thus 80% of French
voters shut their nose and unwillingly voted for Chirac at the run-off election.
Chirac became president with the lowest percentage of votes of any western
leader.
Then last year came the European constitution. It was a French idea, and it was drafted
mainly by a Frenchman, Giscard d'Estaing. The topic became so unpopular that
it was rejected by the French voters, despite the fact that very few of them
had read it and knew what they were rejecting. (We now know what they
were rejecting: change).
Then came the racial riots of 2006: thousands of young rebels setting fire
to cars and battling the police, theoretically to protest unemployment and
segregation, although it felt more like a general protest against the system.
Now come these massive strikes against a labor law that every economist on the planet thinks is not only indispensable but even inevitable.
There are other signs that something is terribly wrong in France. A recent poll
showed that only 36% of French people think that the free market is a good idea.Among young people, almost 66% want to work in a government agency because
their only goal is to find a job for life. Apparently, the quality of the
work does not matter at all. The only thing that matters is that they will
never get fired and will get a good pension. Basically, they only want to get
old, after living an uneventful life, as quickly as possible.
The protests of 2006 have been widely compared with the 1968 riots.
The difference couldn't be more staggering. The generation of 1968 was all
about change, globalization and libertarianism. It was about change at all
costs, no matter what, where, how and (last but not least) why. It was change
for the sake of change. Secondly, it was about a global connection with the
rest of the world. Thirdly, it was about a rebellion against the state and
its bureaucracy. The generation of 2006 is protesting "against" change: it
does not want change. It is protesting globalization: it wants France to become
more isolated, not more integrated with the rest of the world. And it is about
making the state stronger not demolishing it: these are people who want the
state to hire them.
The generation of 1968 was all about creativity (for the sake of creativity).
The generation of 2006 is on a crusade against anything that smells of
creativity. They want mediocrity mandated by the constitution.
The big mystery for foreigners is that all this turmoil in France seemed
to come out of the blue. Nobody saw it coming, apparently. Apparently, the
French political class was clueless about its own public opinion.
Ignoring one symptom after the other, the Chiracs and the Villepins continued
to preside over a process of "change" that was not the medicine but the very
poison causing the malaise.
This amounts to an impressive display of state stupidity and arrogance.
Both Chirac and Villepin kept exhibiting absolute confidence when in fact
they were absolutely clueless.
After he became prime minister, Villepin started behaving as a hero in triumph,
as if the French people had demanded his appointment, when in fact the French
government is not elected, but appointed by the president, and a widely
unpopular president.
The street routinely overturned decisions by the government in a very
undemocratic manner, but Villepin kept behaving as if he knew what France
needs and wants. For foreigners it is hard to believe that the national
politicians did not see this wave of protests coming.
Needless to say, the popular French belief that marching in the streets
solves problems is in itself a repudation of the democratic process (in which
one simply votes).
One senses that the French are simply fed up with the entire system.
Chirac has presided over "two decades of immobility" (as Chirac's own minister
Nicolas Sarkozy said).
This is a generation that has virtually no ambitions. It does not want to
create a "grand France" (like DeGaulle wanted to), it does not want to change
the world (like the 1968 generation wanted to), it does not want to become
the "motor of Europe" (like Mitterrand wanted to). This is a generation that
simply wants to live a life of routines.
Where does the apathy come from?
The politicians themselves may be part of the answer. This is a generation
that was brainwashed by the French political elite into believing a number
of dogmas. One of the dogmas,
propagated by periodic waves of anti-Americanism,
was that the Anglosaxon capitalist model is a
failure and that the French social model is better. Another one is that
the main creator of jobs is the benevolent government.
This generation believes those dogmas. It does not believe anything else.
No French government has ever tried to explain to the French public that
the logic of job protection is a failed logic. There is some elementary
logic that has become extremely difficult for the average French person.
They understand that companies, who need to generated profits, are not motivated to hire if they cannot fire.
But the popular solution is simple: nationalize the companies, so they
are not dependent on profits anymore.
If the government takes the sides of the greedy capitalists, then it is
only natural that this generation takes to the street to protest against
the government.
It is the government that failed, for so many decades, to educate the people.
Even if the government decided to explain their actions to the people,
the people may not be able to understand anymore. Every statistic shows
a rapid decline in French education, particularly in universities.
The drop-out rate for undergraduates is about 40%. In the latest global
ranking by China, no French university is listed in the top 40
universities of the world (this for the country that basically invented
the university as we know it today).
French universities are overcrowded and run by a huge bureaucracy that
is probably more interested in its own survival than in creating new geniuses.
Whatever little research France contributes to the world comes from the
national research institutes. But those are bureaucracies too, that exhibit
the same problems of the industry: underpeforming researchers are guaranteed
a job for life. So much so that French scientists have won only six
Nobel prizes in the century since Pierre and Marie Curie, while Germany has
won 16, Britain 18 and the USA 56.
A nation that thinks that socialism is a more efficient system than capitalism
is either a nation of geniuses (who have understood something that no
economist has understood before) or
(excuse the simplification) a nation of idiots.
When Lionel Jospin (a socialist prime minister) managed to privatize dozens
of public industries without telling the French people, he was indirectly
assuming that the French nation was not capable of understanding the benefits
of privatization, therefore it must be presented as something else (like
when one tells a child that the medicine is a candy).
When, recently, new prime minister Villepin, a fan of Napoleon, decided to
pass a law without consulting the parliament, and, therefore, the people, he may
have implicitly admitted that he thinks he is ruling over a nation of idiots.
The concept may be true in all democracies (people who know what they are
voting for are always a tiny minority) but the French political leaders
themselves are behaving like the problem is particularly serious in France.
Having relied so long on dogmas, the new French generations are now
confused by the consequences of those dogmas. Instead of blaming the dogmas,
they are trying to blame everything and everybody else.
Eventually, they will rediscover the most important invention of humankind:
the mirror.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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