François Hollande, the party apparatchik, who was never a government minister despite 30 years in politics, enjoys the grandeur of his new home in Paris. But it cannot take long before those who put him there realize that he is an emperor without clothes.
It is becoming more and more apparent, that president François Hollande and his fellow socialists are incapable of reforming their crisis-ridden country:
In the midst of the economic crisis, France's Socialists are denying reality. The minister of industrial renewal is calling for nationalization of some industries, while the president shies away from necessary structural reforms. Business leaders fear the clock has been turned back 30 years.
industry's share of economic output has declined from 18 percent in 2000 to 12.5 percent today. This puts France in 15th place among the 17 countries in the euro zone, and significantly behind Italy. The country's industrial sector has lost 2 million jobs since the Mitterand era. In 2011, France had a trade deficit of €71.2 billion ($93.1 billion), compared with a surplus of €3.5 billion in 2002. At the same time, the national debt has grown to 90 percent of the gross domestic product.
"Whenever a new problem popped up in the last 25 years, our country reacted by increasing spending," says banker Michel Pébereau.
Public sector spending now accounts for almost 57 percent of GDP, more than in Sweden or Germany. For every 1,000 residents, there are 90 public servants (compared with only about 50 in Germany). The public sector employs 22 percent of all workers.
La douce France is a sleepy country of bureaucrats and government officials who want their peace and quiet. But the bad news is beginning to pile up for Hollande.
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France is worried, France is beset by doubts and France is depressed, says writer Jean d'Ormesson, a member of the Académie Française. The philosopher Pascal Bruckner confirms his diagnosis: "France's biggest party is the party of fear. The French are afraid of the world, afraid of others and, most of all, afraid of their own fear."
This leads them to turn a blind eye to reality. They feel vindicated in their repression of reality by the crowds of tourists in the country, who value France precisely because of the museum-like quality of its savoir vivre.
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With this kind of development, it cannot take long before France joins the other southern eurozone countries in need of German bail-out funding. By that time M. Hollande will have to start looking for a new, somewhat less grand dwelling.
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