Le Monde Diplomatique
Friday 25 January 2008
"All that you propose, I will do," Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy promised as he conferred responsibility on Mr. Jacques Attali for a report meant to "free French growth." Has the president of the Republic once again grasped the extent of his own impulsiveness - and his own imprudence? In any case, two of the principal recommendations of the Attali commission - the suppression of the département [French regional government] and the abandonment of the "precautionary principle" in the environmental domain - have already been deep-sixed by the head of state. Three hundred fourteen recommendations remain (1). At least two of them represent monuments of political and social danger: the option "[offered] to each person to put off, if he so desires, his retirement," and parents' ability "to freely choose the place of their children's schooling." "If he so desires," "freely": how can anyone object to such liberality?
At first glance, several elements of this report are striking. First of all, its forty-two authors (2). Almost all are free-market liberals; it's not very surprising that they should bring forth a liberal free-market diagnosis of the French economy. Moreover, "the report arouses controversy, given how far it wants to go towards deregulation," concedes Le Figaro, (24 January), itself a priori not especially hostile to that kind of orientation (3). The fact that Mr. Jacques Attali, presumed to be a leftist because he was one of François Mitterrand's principal advisers at the Elysée, is leading this commission, nonetheless contributes to the political smokescreen effect Mr. Sarkozy is so fond of: nothing better than to put Socialists at the head of commissions or even in the government itself to pass off policies that themselves are not socialist at all. Close to fifteen years ago, then-Prime Minister Edouard Balladur - Mr. Sarkozy's political mentor - also granted a media-celebrated intellectual, presumed to be on the Left, Mr. Alain Minc, along with a supposedly pluralist team, responsibility for deliberating on "the France of 2000." That commission included three of Mr. Jean-Pierre Raffarin's future ministers (4), as well as Mr. Raymond Soubie, the present social adviser to President Sarkozy at the Elysée (see, in our archives, "Dans les coulisses de la 'réforme'" [In the Coulisses of 'Reform'"]).
In 2003, while he was minister of economics and finance, Mr. Sarkozy himself charged Mr. Michel Camdessus with a reconsideration of the deemed inadequacy of the French economy's growth. And there, once again, according to the enduring principle of passing off one thing for another, an admixture of leftist personalities served as a pluralistic warranty for a report intended to promote some themes of the right a bit further in the media - and advance them in public opinion. To take the measure of that endeavor's consequences, one need only recall that the main idea that came out of the Camdessus report was ... "Work more to earn more" (5).
Mrs. Ségolène Royal does not seem to have grasped the extent of the danger. Or she doesn't care about it: hadn't she already made a habit of the same kind of daring by appealing to Bernard-Henri Lévy during the course of her electoral campaign last spring? Whatever the case may be, Mrs. Royal gave her endorsement to the Attali report, deeming that the commission members constituted "a team of high intelligence" (which is quite likely) and "of great diversity" (which is strictly false). "So, it's a gift," concluded the Left's former presidential candidate, "It's on the table; it's to help France."
This sort of grandiloquence must not displease Mr. Attali, whose immodesty is proverbial. Comparing himself to the liberal economist Turgot when the latter alerted a king of France in 1774 - Louis XVI, as it so happens - against the approaching storm, Mr. Mitterrand's former adviser cited this statement: "I alone will fight against every kind of abuse, against the swarm of prejudices that oppose every reform and that are such a powerful tool in the hands of self-serving people for perpetuating misrule. (...) I will be feared, hated even, by most of the court, by all those who solicit favors." Nothing of the sort, when one advances ideas that are "in the air" already, then presents oneself as ready for every daring, ready for every sacrifice. That also allows him to suggest that any lack of enthusiasm from political officials, any reservations, any caution, will expose them to the cruel judgment of posterity. "It's up to the president and the government to decide what they want to do with the report," Mr. Attali indicated, for example. "In the eyes of History, they will bear the responsibility for having seized or passed on this unique opportunity for reform (6)." But, in history, as we know, it was not Turgot who mounted the guillotine…
In a way, it's precisely to save Mr. Sarkozy from that kind of fate that Jacques Attali, who has no democratic legitimacy other than the prince's favor, offers his gift package just at the time when Western growth has slowed down and when the "markets" display acute agitation. For the solution to all our ills already exists: "If the totality of these reforms is implemented," Mr. Attali promised, "the rate of growth could be over a percentage point higher in 2008; the unemployment rate could be reeled in to five percent; two million jobs could be created; the unemployment rate among the young could be divided by three; the number of French below the poverty threshold could be reduced to three million; we've calculated that the life expectancy difference between the most and the least privileged could be reduced by a year [sic], that more than two thousand companies could be created in the suburbs, that government debt could be reduced to 55 percent and that tourist visits could surpass 90 million." Happiness, in short.
For a market crisis, market remedies. It makes no difference that the recipe has been tried - and proved deficient - a hundred times, there are always, as in Molière's time, apothecaries to propose it. A disciple of Friedrich Hayek, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, former minister Alain Madelin had a connoisseur's appreciation for Mr. Sarkozy's communication operation: "Entrusting the presidency of this commission to Jacques Attali was slick because that allowed responses of a necessarily free-market liberal inspiration to be endorsed by a self-identified Socialist personality, closely linked to François Mitterrand's policies (7)."
(1)The full report may be read at this address: www.liberationdelacroissance.com
(2) M. Philippe Aghion, professor of economics at Harvard (USA), member of the Council of Economic Analysis; Mr. Franco Bassanini, former minister in the government of the Republic of Italy; Mr. Claude Bébéar, president of the Montaigne Institute; Mr. Jihad Belamri, director general-president of BEE (a mid-sized consulting and industrial engineering company); M. Christian de Boissieu, economics professor, executive president of the Council for Economic Analysis, member of the Orientation Council for Employment; Mr. Stéphane Boujnah, managing director of Deutsche Bank; Mr. Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, director general-president of Nestlé SA; Mr. Boris Cyrulnik, doctor, neurologist and psychiatrist; Mr. René Carron, president of Crédit agricole SA; Mr. Jean-Philippe Cotis, head economist for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD); Mr. Jean-Michel Darrois, lawyer; Mrs. Michèle Debonneuil, appointed inspector general of finances, member of the Council of Economic Analysis, member of the Council for Employment, Income, and Social Cohesion; Mr. Jacques Delpla, economist, member of the Council of Economic Analysis; Mr. Xavier Fontanet, civil engineer for roads and bridges; president-director general of Essilor International; Mrs. Evelyne Gebhardt, representative to the European Parliament (Sociality Group, Germany); Mr. Pehr G. Gyllenhammar, president of Kinnevik, president of the Swedish Maritime Bank, former president of Volvo; Mrs. Marion Guillou, general engineer for rural, water, and forest engineering, president-director general for the National Institute of Agronomic Research (INRA); Mrs. Nathalie Hanet, secretary general for COORACE, the Federation of Committees and Organizations to Assist the Unemployed with Jobs; Mr. Jean Kaspar, consultant, former secretary general of the Democratic French Confederation of Labor (CFDT); Mr. Yves de Kerdrel, journalist at le Figaro; Mr. Eric Labaye, Associate Director General of McKinsey's Paris office; Mr. Jean-Pierre Landau, Inspector general of Finances, under-governor at the Bank of France; Mrs. Anne Lauvergeon, President of the Executive Board of Areva; Mr. Bruno Lasserre, Government Advisor; President of the Competition Council; Mr. Eric Le Boucher, journalist at Le Monde; Mr. Hervé Le Bras, demographer, Director of Studies at the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales (Advanced Social Sciences School); Mrs. Reine-Claude Mader Saussaye, President of Confederation for Consumption, Housing, and Lifestyle. Member of the Competition Council; Mr. Mario Monti, President of Bocconi University of Milan (Italy), former European Commissioner: Mr. Pierre Nanterme, President of Accenture; Mr. Erik Orsenna, author, member of the Académie française, Government Advisor; Mrs. Ana de Palacio Vallelersundi, lawyer, university professor, First Vice President and Legal Advisor to the World Bank, former minister of the government of the Kingdom of Spain; Mr. Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, president-director general of Virgin Mobile France, president of CroissancePlus; Mrs. Dominique Senequier, president of the Executive Board of AXA Private Equity; Mr. Pierre Sébastien Thill, president of the Executive Board for CMS Bureau Francis Lefebvre; Mr. Philippe Tillous-Borde, president of Saipol and of Diester Industrie; Mr. Jean-Noël Tronc, director general and member of the Executive Committee for Orange France; Mr. François Villeroy de Galhau, general inspector of Finances, president-director general of CETELEM; Mr. Michel de Virville, master adviser to the Court of Financial Auditors, secretary general charged with support functions to the Renault Group; Mr. Serge Weinberg, president of the Board of Directors and president of the Strategic Council of Accor; Mrs. Dinah Weissmann, president-director general of Biocortech; Mr. Theodore Zeldin, author, sociologist, historian, dean of Oxford's Saint Anthony's College (Great Britain).
(3) "It's not about deregulation," Mr. Attali retorted." It's about creating the conditions for wider competition, easier to benefit employment and workers, for consumers' advantage, but at the same time, about greater protection and a better equilibrium."
(4) Mssrs. Jean-Paul Delevoye, Luc Ferry and Francis Mer. The other commission members were: Mr. Dominique Balmary, Mr. Claude Bébéar, Mr. Jean-Louis Beffa, Mr. Jean Boissonnat, Mr. Michel Bon, Mrs. Isabelle Bouillot, Mr. Paul Champsaur, Mr. Michel Debatisse, Mr. Bernard Esambert, Mr. Jean-Paul Fitoussi, Mr. Jean-Baptiste de Foucauld, Mr. Bertrand Fragonard, Mr. Jacques Freyssinet, Mr. François Grappotte, Mr. Pierre Guillen, Mr. Jean-Pierre Landau, Mr. Bertrand Landrieu, Mr. René Lenoir, Mr. Yves Lichtenberger, Mr. Bertrand Lobry, Mr. Gérard Maarek, Mr. Edgar Morin, Mr. Christian Noyer, Mr. Michel Pébereau, Mr. Laurent Perpère, Mr. René Rémond, Mr. Pierre Rosanvallon, Mrs. Rolande Ruellan, Mr. Louis Schweitzer, Mr. Raymond Soubie, Mr. Michel Taly, Mr. Alain Touraine.
(5) The objective of the Camdessus Commission - "to liberate and put all our country's active forces to work" to make up for the lag in France's growth - was specified thus: "The fundamental differences in performance with our partners are explained by the lesser quantity of work that we mobilize (…). If a French worker produces five percent more per hour worked than an American, he will produce 13 percent less per year and 36 percent less for the total of his working life. (…) As an example, if we had a rate of employment and hours worked equivalent to the United Kingdom, our GDP would be around 20 percent higher after 10 years, and so 1.75 percent higher on average per year, putting our objective of three percent within reach."
(6) Le Monde, 24 January 2008.
(7) Alain Madelin, "If Even Attali Says It ...," Le Figaro, 24 January 2008.
-------
No comments:
Post a Comment