What do you get when your government promises to coddle you for life?

Well, you get the mess that is the French socialist paradise (Hat tip: E-Nough!):

France must learn to work harder and rein in its "excessive" public sector if it is not to sink into irreversible economic decline, a committee of experts led by former IMF chief Michel Camdessus warned the government Tuesday.

Commissioned by Finance Minister and presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy, the report [Le sursaut - Vers une nouvelle croissance pour la France (The Start - Toward a New Growth for France)] painted a depressing picture of a country hampered by unemployment of nearly 10 percent, declining productivity and investment and permanently low growth rates.

It warned that public debt, which has tripled as a proportion of gross domestic product in the past 20 years, as well as heavy public spending, were jeopardising the state's capacity to cope with future problems.

"A serious syndrome of denial is setting in which curbs all but superficial reforms. But the fact is we are indeed stalling, and if nothing is done to overcome the pernicious phenomena which we have observed, in about 10 years it will lead to an irretrievable situation," the report said.

M. Camdessus then readies the stake for the heart of France's plummy don't-work-too-much law:

The report identified the main problem as France's "work deficit", caused by low working hours and structurally high unemployment rates - especially among the young and the old - and it called for an end to the "share-out logic" which has led to the compulsory 35-hour week in a bid to create jobs.

"If we are growing less quickly it is because we do not mobilise our labour resources sufficiently. Over 20 years the entire growth gap separating us from the US and Britain corresponds to the change in working hours," it said.

M. Sarkozy sensibly embraces the report:

"I identify with this report because it says three essential things: that it is urgent to carry out reforms in our country, that reforms are not to be seen as a punishment, and that the number of public workers can be reduced in exchange for productivity gains," Sarkozy said.

He has already indicated the proposals will form the basis of the party's [Union for a Popular Movement (UMP)] economic manifesto ahead of his probable presidential bid in 2007.

Then the usual complaints, the usual characters. France's most noisy -- if not most powerful -- union, CGT, begins its press comments on the report thusly: "Yes, France and Europe have an urgent need for a new growth." And there is where agreement ends. CGT contends the report, rife with contradictions and light on substantive change, still manages to attack every fundamental right of the working stiff. "Monsieur Camdessus qui opte pour des propositions libérales, se trompe vraiment de chemin." Mr. Camdessus's liberal proposals are the wrong way. The right way apparently being more of the CGT same-old-same-old.