| Vive la différence ! |
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[written in response to a question posed to me by my Italian teacher - very much my personal view, as I am not in any sense an economist] So what are the economic differences between the French and the English as far as the European Union is concerned? Well its not easy to put into a few words. But it is true that the French were doing better economically in the 1980's. They therefore had no need of a Margaret Thatcher to make radical changes to their work practices and centrally directed economy. In England the changes had already begun under the previous labour government when Jim Callaghan tried to combat the ever-increasing power of the unions against a background of a worsening economy. The electors decided that they had had enough of chaos in public services and in 1979 voted in the Conservatives under Mrs Thatcher instead. La Dame de Fer was the catalyst who set in motion a series of interconnected events that gave a revolutionary twist to the century's last two decades. With Ronald Reagan she brought about the triumph of capitalism and the almost universal acceptance of the market as indispensable to prosperity. A necessary result was the downsizing of the state and Britain led the way in those changes in Europe. Indeed it is only now that countries such as France and Germany are coming to terms with the need to change. France indeed is still wedded to its ‘social model', although it is a little difficult to say what it is exactly. It certainly includes an acceptance of strikes in support of unions' political aims and very centralised government. It also includes a wish to support farming for mostly sentimental reasons. France is a huge country and so there is a lot of countryside and a lot of people still consider themselves to be somehow spiritually linked to their grandparents' village. In turn that is coupled with a view of food which relates it to ‘terroir', an idea which simply does not exist in England . Whatever it is, the French newspapers are now saying that the Social Model cannot be a model when no-one wishes to copy it. And they do not. The accession countries are mainly following the dreaded Anglo-Saxon model. It may be that the French will now have to come into the world of globalisation, cease to run a protectionist economy and learn to love the market. Pigs might fly, but it is inevitable that they will have to change their attitude to a large extent, whilst no doubt claiming, with typical French humility, that their own Gallic version of a market economy is somehow different from and better than everyone-else's - above all that of the anglo-saxons. |