Monday, July 18, 2005

 

Red, white and boo

President Jacques Chirac celebrated Bastille Day (the French national holiday) on Thursday by insisting that France had no need to "envy or copy" Britain. Whether the point of comparison was food, health, education or science, France was in far better shape than its old rival, he said. "I have a lot of esteem for the British people and for Tony Blair," he said. "But I do not believe that the British social model is a model that we should copy or envy."

Chirac's response is part of a concerted campaign to restore French pride at a time of national soul-searching and gloom. His tub-thumping included French cuisine, which he said undoubtedly, played a part in the nation's exceptionally high life expectancy.

Next in Mr Chirac's litany of praise came his country's birth rate, the highest in Europe with Ireland's, and its status as the world's "second agricultural power". He reiterated his refusal to make "the slightest concession" on the Common Agricultural Policy, which the Prime Minister argues is in need of urgent reform because it takes up 40 per cent of the EU budget.

As Tony Blair pointed out recently to the EU: "Some have suggested I want to abandon Europe's social model," he said. "But tell me: what type of social model is it that has 20 million unemployed in Europe? Productivity rates falling behind those of the U.S.A.? That is allowing more science graduates to be produced by India than by Europe? And that, on any relative index of a modern economy -- skills, R & D, patents, IT -- is going down, not up?"

It is time for France to realize that the old ways don't cut it in the new economy. It is not enough to have good food and wine, you actually have to jobs for people. Chirac could start making smart decisions by quitting coddling French farmers, who are the most subsidized in the world and really hurting developing countries.

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