France Survey

From: Subject: Economist.com Date: 14 juin 2007 00:18:14 HAEC

The art of the impossible

Oct 26th 2006 From The Economist print edition

Bridgeman

A morose France has fallen behind its competitors. But there is nothing inevitable about its decline, argues Sophie Pedder: all it needs is political will “SOMETHING seems very wrong with this country. Once the very model of a modern major power—stable, rich and smug—it appears beset now by political and economic instability and by civil unrest and disorder. One observer has even taken to calling it 'the sick man of Europe'. Hardly a month passes without the appearance of a new book or learned article on the decline and imminent demise of a once proud country.” Alarmist talk about France has become commonplace. Home-grown titles such as “France in Freefall”, “Gallic Illusions” and “France's Malheur” crowd the bookshelves. Politicians hold seminars with titles such as “The Origins of the French Disease”. “Declinism” has become a school of thought. Pessimism prevails. Fully four-fifths of the French tell pollsters that they think “things are getting worse.” But the opening quotation, seemingly so apt for morose France today, is not about that country at all. It was written in 1979 by Isaac Kramnick, an American political scientist, and refers to Britain. The 1970s were Britain's decade of self-doubt, not so unlike the first decade of the 21st century is turning out to be for France. The country was paralysed by a sense of terminal decline. The mainstream left was beholden to its militants, union friends and class warriors. Politicians were preoccupied by the distribution of wealth, not its creation. Strikes were as crippling as taxes. Industrial jobs were going to lower-cost countries and academic brains to America. Britain was uncomfortable about its place in the world. Now it is France's turn. The country is gripped by a belief in its own decline. It sees itself as a victim of globalisation, regarding markets as...