Political Observer comments & supplies ‘a selective reading’ of Conradi’s polemic!
Mr. Conradi’s feature story begin as just that:
When Holly-Rose Clegg was beginning her acting career in Paris, a job at Starbucks helped pay her bills. Almost a decade later, she has a successful career on stage and screen and in adverts — but it is now the French state, rather than serving coffee, that keeps her going in the inevitable gap between engagements.
Every month, Clegg logs onto an official website to input the jobs she has done and how much she has earned and is paid for the days on which she has not been working — in her case, typically €1,600 (£1,350) a month.
“It’s amazing because France is the only country that pays us like a salary every month,” said Clegg, 33, who was born in London to British parents and moved to France when she was eight. “They give it to actors, singers, dancers, musicians, even technical people who work on movie sets or do the sound. Even if you’re a foreigner, you can still have it if you work here, which is really cool. It’s not just for French people.”
Clegg is among more than 300,000 intermittents du spectacle — people employed on a casual basis in the French entertainment industry — who are entitled to receive money from the state provided they satisfy certain criteria, including a minimum number of performances or hours a year.
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Editor: But Conradi can’t resist the temptation that these introductory paragraphs offer, to become what be might be named a Thatcherite Scold, in a bespoke suit- this is The Times, with a history of not just Conservatism, but an Anglicized Neo-Liberalism, via that Iron Lady!
The scheme, estimated to cost more than €1 billion a year, is typical of a unique economic model that has made the French state one of the largest and most generous in the world.
Such largesse comes at a cost, however: now at close to 57 per cent of GDP, government spending in France has long been way higher than in any of its G7 rivals; the equivalent figure for Britain is 44.2 per cent and for America 37.5 per cent. At the same time, tax rates are high, while social charges — the French equivalent of national insurance — are vast.
Yet, in recent years, successive governments have been finding it increasingly difficult to balance the books: the budget deficit is running at 5.5 per cent of GDP, which has helped push up French government debt to 110.8 per cent of GDP, third only to the figures for Greece (159.8 per cent) and Italy (137.7 per cent).
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Editor: Mr. Conradi’s evidence as the above presents it, is well ‘alarming’? I’ll choose some telling fragments, of the remaining 969 words of the Conradi’s verbose polemic, that left the experience of Holly-Rose Clegg’s story as mere window dressing!
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the markets are getting nervous, the ratings agencies have downgraded French debt and the European Commission is demanding action.
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To further complicate matters, the country is still without a government almost a month after an inconclusive election in which the largest number of seats was won by the New Popular Front…
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“We are the world champions for public spending and the European champion for taxes, plus growth is mediocre at little more than 1 per cent,” said Benoît Perrin, director of Contribuables Associés, a campaigning group that is the French equivalent of Britain’s TaxPayers’ Alliance.
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The only way to balance the books is to cut public spending, but for 50 years, our governments have drugged the French with public money, and it is very difficult to wean them off it.”
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The situation is compounded, Perrin argues, by multiple levels of bureaucracy and an army of fonctionnaires (public sector workers), whose numbers have been growing year on year.
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Editor: The fact is that the Neo-Liberal Marcon has been a dismal failure, across the board : the non-vote on the retirement age was a demonstration of Macron’s cowardice!
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Paradoxically, France’s budgetary woes come despite a concerted drive by President Emmanuel Macron to open up the economy since he first came to power in 2017: labour laws have been made more flexible, taxes for business lowered and unemployment cut considerably.
Foreign investors have taken note and, for the fifth year running, put more money into France than they have into Germany or Britain…
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… and, when it comes to crises, Macron’s response, like that of his predecessors, has been to spend more public money, putting his country increasingly at odds with its neighbours and competitors.
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Bruno Le Maire, the outgoing finance minister, announced plans last month for €25 billion in budget cuts this year, with the aim of bringing the deficit down towards the level demanded by the EU: 3 per cent of GDP.
This was not enough to appease the Cour des comptes, the independent body that scrutinises France’s public spending. In a damning report, the auditors accused the government of failing to deliver sufficient cuts and described its debt-reduction promises for the future as “unrealistic”.
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The Council of Economic Analysis (CAE), an organisation attached to the French prime minister’s office, argued in a recent note that the government would have to cut spending by €112 billion over the next 7 to 12 years to generate a 1 per cent primary budget surplus necessary to bring down the debt.
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:spending by the French presidency last year was €125.5 million, a budget overshoot of €8.3 million, it was revealed last week. This included €474,851 for a lavish reception for King Charles at the Palace of Versailles during his state visit.
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Like Gabriel Attal, the prime minister, and other members of the government, he tendered his resignation following the election. It remains to be seen who will replace them.
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… the New Popular Front has staked its claim to the premiership, alarming financial markets with policies that include raising public sector wages, linking salaries to inflation, and cutting income tax and social security contributions for lower earners.
Notably, it has pledged to reverse a controversial law pushed through parliament last year by Macron to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64, credited with saving the state an estimated €17 billion a year — and reduce it even further to just 60.
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…Lucie Castets, 37, a left-wing economist and senior civil servant, called for €150 billion more in taxes between now and 2027, largely levied on the better off and on companies, and said keeping to the EU’s 3 per cent limit would not be her “primary objective”.
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Unwilling to destabilise the country in the middle of the Olympics, he has said he will not do so until after the Games end next weekend. In the meantime, France’s debt looks set to continue ticking up.
Political Observer
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