While it may be a little dangerous to speak so soon, a remarkable gulf is growing between the responses of the British and the French public to their governments’ attempts to balance the books. In Britain, there has been a calm reaction to the cuts so far announced, with a clear majority supporting the government’s bungled announcement that it is to restrict child benefit payments. In France, the only austerity measure to speak of is raising the minimum retirement age from 60 to 62 — and it has brought protesters to the streets. Three million are on strike, with two thirds of the public supporting them. . . .
The state continues to account for over half the French economy — as it does, now, in Britain.
But while we seek to reverse this, Sarkozy is compounding the problem by setting up a fund to increase government-owned stakes in large companies. His resolve, of which we heard so much on his election in 2007, seems to be evaporating. . . .
A banner hanging in Paris this week sums up the sense of entitlement felt by too many French to a life of ease. It reads, ‘We don’t want to lose our lives by earning a living.’ . . .
France’s problem is that, for too long, the economy has been run as a kind of job club for French workers. They are virtually impossible to sack, which makes membership of this club an unattainable dream for those outside it — many of them young Muslims, languishing in the banlieues. It has long been a popular belief among French politicians that jobs are a finite resource that can be shared around more fairly through the application of short working weeks and early retirement. That theory does not sit easily with France’s scandalously high structural unemployment rate, which was around 10 per cent even during the boom years.
Britain and France believe in liberty, but have different definitions of it. Ours involves liberty from government, the idea behind David Cameron’s dismally expressed ‘big society’ agenda. In France, they still like the big state and squeal at the prospect of being removed from its teat. . . .
Even the introduction of a 35-hour working week caused consternation among civil servants who previously had worked only 32 hours a week. Technically, employers now have the ability to ask staff to work longer. In practice, no one dares. . . .
To respond to a debt crisis with more debt is to enter a form of denial — a form that we can see on the streets of Athens and Paris. Germany and Sweden have chosen the hard path to fiscal credibility, and have seen economic momentum restored. As Barack Obama waits in vain for his $800 billion ‘stimulus’ to work, it is clear that governments cannot borrow their way to recovery.
The British have always understood this.
(Read more from newstaging.spectator.widearea.co.uk)