You have to protect your missile silos, this is why it makes sense for Nations like France & the UK to have sub-based nuclear deterrents.

SURVEY: FRANCE

The art of the impossible

Oct 26th 2006
From The Economist print edition

A morose France has fallen behind its competitors. But there is nothing inevitable about its decline, argues Sophie Pedder: all it needs is political will

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“SOMETHING seems very wrong with this country. Once the very model of a modern major power—stable, rich and smug—it appears beset now by political and economic instability and by civil unrest and disorder. One observer has even taken to calling it 'the sick man of Europe'. Hardly a month passes without the appearance of a new book or learned article on the decline and imminent demise of a once proud country.”

Alarmist talk about France has become commonplace. Home-grown titles such as “France in Freefall”, “Gallic Illusions” and “France's Malheur” crowd the bookshelves. Politicians hold seminars with titles such as “The Origins of the French Disease”. “Declinism” has become a school of thought. Pessimism prevails. Fully four-fifths of the French tell pollsters that they think “things are getting worse.”

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But the opening quotation, seemingly so apt for morose France today, is not about that country at all. It was written in 1979 by Isaac Kramnick, an American political scientist, and refers to Britain.

The 1970s were Britain's decade of self-doubt, not so unlike the first decade of the 21st century is turning out to be for France. The country was paralysed by a sense of terminal decline. The mainstream left was beholden to its militants, union friends and class warriors. Politicians were preoccupied by the distribution of wealth, not its creation. Strikes were as crippling as taxes. Industrial jobs were going to lower-cost countries and academic brains to America. Britain was uncomfortable about its place in the world.

Now it is France's turn. The country is gripped by a belief in its own decline. It sees itself as a victim of globalisation, regarding markets as a threat and profits as suspicious. It has a short working week, militant unions and high unemployment. The opposition Socialist Party, in its official programme for next spring's presidential and parliamentary elections, pledges to renationalise the electricity utility, raise the minimum wage, enforce the 35-hour week more vigorously and reverse tax cuts.

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Moreover, the creed of anti-liberalism and anti-globalisation is shared by both left and right. The centre-right government of Dominique de Villepin is irredeemably protectionist, fending off foreign predators at every turn. The president, Jacques Chirac, a Gaullist descendant, has called liberalism a greater menace for Europe than communism. France is troubled by its diminished voice in the world and fretful about immigration at home. Fear of change is pervasive.

Just as Britain battled through its winter of discontent in 1978-79, when rubbish went uncollected, school gates unopened and ambulances undriven, France has fought its way through a series of social upheavals in the past 18 months. First, its electorate revolted over the European Union in May 2005, rejecting a new constitution for the European project that its own countrymen co-founded. Next, its multi-ethnic underclass revolted against exclusion, with 20 consecutive nights of rioting in nearly 300 banlieues across the country, forcing the government to declare a state of emergency. Most recently, its students and unions revolted against insecurity, holding countrywide strikes, university sit-ins and protest marches to contest a plan to make it easier to hire and fire the under-26s.

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