France's "Thatcher moment?"
The French vote for president today in perhaps the most significant election since the end of World War II. Their choice is stark: on the one hand, Socialist Segolene Royal promises not only to continue the policies that have provided an extensive social-welfare state at the expense of crippling France's economy, she has promised to deepen them. On the other, Nicholas Sarkozy, candidate of the center-right UMP, has made it plain he intends to reform France's sclerotic economy, rolling back some of the welfare state , loosening France's enterprise-killing labor regulations, and lowering the country's crushing taxes.
The Telegraph thinks this election bears a significance similar the 1979 election in Great Britain, when voters felt a desperate need for change and handed the reigns of government to Margaret Thatcher:
It rarely happens to a country that a clear opportunity is presented to it to save itself from ruin. Only once since the war has it happened to Britain, in 1979, when the people realised that the end of the road had been reached with the consensus that had prevailed since the Second World War, and it was time to start again on a different basis. Tomorrow, France can choose to have its 1979.
A post-war consensus similar to the one we ditched nearly 30 years ago has now prevailed in France since 1945, and after 62 years it is looking pretty threadbare. Generations of French politicians have been haunted by the memories of division, hatred and suspicion that were rife in France after the occupation, with former maquisards hating collaborators, and French society turning in on itself with recrimination and hostility.
France's post-war rulers took the view that, to heal the wounds of 1940-44, they had to govern for all the French, not merely for a particular group within France.
What that has effectively meant is that the majority of French are bought off with a lavish welfare state and jobs on the public payroll, financed by a minority who pay high taxes for the privilege of living in France. That deal, however, is almost completely broken. Business has had enough of bankrolling bureaucracy and funding feather-bedding. Well-known French individuals, such as the popular singer and actor Johnny Hallyday, have sundered their ties with the country and gone to live abroad because of the penal wealth tax, which led to Hallyday complaining that he now has to send two thirds of his annual income to the French treasury.
The decision France has to take tomorrow, when it chooses between Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal for its new president, is whether it finally has the courage to move out of the 1940s, or is determined to stay there to the point of utter economic destruction.
Which way will France choose? We'll know tonight. Either way, the results are bound to be significant not only for France, but Europe and the West in general.
LINKS: Pajamas Media reports a huge voter turnout and that the French riot police are on alert. Captain Ed reports that leaked returns show a Sarkozy victory, while Fausta makes it official.
Recent Comments