A rchive Date
[ 20-05-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ France ]
|
[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/margolis_may18.html
There's big trouble in Euro-paradise
By ERIC MARGOLIS - Contributing Foreign Editor
May 18, 2003
PARIS - Here are Europe's three deepest mysteries. 1) How do Italians stay so slim when surrounded by irresistibly delicious pastas? 2) How do Spaniards manage to dine at midnight, hit the discos afterwards, then go to work next morning? 3) How do the French manage to work so little, yet maintain the world's most enjoyable and luxurious lifestyle?
No one knows, but last week's massive strikes and demonstrations across France, as well as in Sweden and Austria (Italy is next), showed there is big trouble in Euro-paradise.
As I write, Paris and all other French cities are paralyzed and chaotic. France's powerful, truculent public service unions (an oxymoron if there ever was one) have shut down trains, subways, air travel, telecommunications and government services. Teacher unions, always far to the left, have walked out; so, too, truckers and mailmen.
Over a million workers are staging huge street demonstrations across France. Spring in Paris used to be known as the time for romance. Now, it has become the time for strikes.
The national strike that has brought France to a standstill is a warning by unions to the conservative government of President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin not to go ahead with plans to overhaul the state pension system.
Many French in both the public and private sectors are retiring between the ages of 58-60, at three-quarters or more of their regular working incomes. France's lavish pension system was created when only a minority of people lived beyond 60. Today, thanks to the nation's excellent, but underfunded medical system, the "bon vivant" French live well into their 80s, considerably exceeding in longevity the diet and exercise-obsessed North Americans.
"Old Europe" is getting very old, indeed. The state pension system cannot support so many elderly and will, warns PM Raffarin, soon go bust unless reformed. This means raising the retirement age in stages, initially to around 62, and eventually to 65 or even 70, and pushing people to start using private pension funds to augment the state plan.
Such reforms are sensible and inevitable, but spoiled French unions refuse to face reality. The idea of the patron state as fount of endless goodies and largesse is as much a part of French culture as the baguette or smoking while you eat. Over half of France's economic output goes through government hands, making it the nation's largest employer and arbiter of wages and benefits.
No wonder France's national sport is street demonstrations. As sport, art form and political ritual, France's "manifestations" are usually good-natured affairs, but can turn ugly. Back in the late 1950s and '60s, bloody pitched battles were fought in Paris between leftist demonstrators and head-smashing riot police renowned for their brutality. In 1995, massive demonstrations against proposed pension reforms brought down the government.
The French have known since their revolution that politicians respond to two major stimuli: fear and greed. Huge street demonstrations, like last week's, terrify bureaucrats and politicians in their gold-encrusted Louis XV offices, and usually get results. The French prefer intimidating officials and find it far more effective than the North American practice of buying politicians. To a nation that created history's greatest revolution, threatening to burn down city hall and string up politicians feels more democratic and more emotionally satisfying - and means another day off work.
However, the principal proponents of mass demonstrations are public sector unions that claim to serve the people but are really focused on feathering their nests. Restrictive labour laws imposed by previous socialist governments and their union allies play a major role in the nation's chronically high unemployment rate. Foreign investors steer clear of notoriously difficult, business-unfriendly France.
As everywhere else, French love the free lunch - goodies and benefits paid by someone else. They revel in state-sponsored laziness, such as two long weekends this month plus another day off for rioting, and half a day to recover. Plus six weeks of annual paid vacation; a galaxy of special interest subsidies; almost free medicine and education (probably the world's best); and, most recently, the preposterous 35-hour work week. One truly wonders how France remains such a wealthy nation. Even journalists, a low and tawdry bunch, get special lunch coupons from papa government.
Most Frenchmen take their two-hour daily lunch - with wine, of course. They drive snappy cars and dress, at least in Paris, expensively. They quit their offices by 5 in order to call on their mistresses before returning home to an excellent dinner prepared by their forgiving wives.
In spite of chain-smoking, avoiding exercise and vegetables, and eating fat, the French heart attack rate is 40% lower than in the U.S. The media-driven national hysterias and paranoias that afflict North America - Osama bin Laden, flabby thighs, incontinence, child molesting, SARS, mad snipers, etc. - are happily uncommon here.
France has other problems, of course: high taxes and unemployment, rising crime, deafening noise, traffic jams and a shocking decline in its formerly exquisite cuisine. The French are notorious grumblers, but in the main they are happier than the citizens of most other nations. In fact, an astounding 72% of French spend their long vacations in their own beautiful country.
One way or the other, France's good times just keep on rolling.
Eric can be reached by e-mail at margolis@foreigncorrespondent.com. Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com or visit his home page.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
Cross-Indexed:
|
|