Je crois avoir laissé la France dans un meilleur état que celui que j'ai trouvé.
[I believe I have left France in a better state than that which I found.]
Dom,
"new impulse" prime minister,
self-applauding his government's accomplishments
during his 20th and final news conference as Jack's PM
April 3, 2007 (Figaro)
Thank God that Dom has tipped us -- and the whole of France -- off to the good times. Without his credible pronouncement, who would have known? Maybe unemployment really is 8.4%. Dom seems to believe so.
Ruinous pensions, no-to-low growth and concomitant trade deficits (and here), energy dependency, violent crime, rioting (and here), racism, anti-semitism, scandals -- pfft! What sort of measures are these for a "new impulse" government?
Let us, like Dom, use our imagination to recall this government's many fabulous impulses:
- Carbon taxes (alas, this must be left to some visionary successor government)
[Pause.] Hold your horses! We're dredging here.
Um. [Another pause.] Oh, yes!
Whew, that's it for us. Our imagination is spent.
PFFT (What is this?): Making France a super better place 1¼ | Rayonnement français ¼
Now what would the unemployment rate be if they didn't have all the ghettos of unemployed immigrants?
Dr. Wright,
Unemployment in the banlieues is anyone's guess. It has been estimated between 20%-50%, higher still for the under-25.
However how all that is factored into the official numbers is suspect. Insee (scil., the office of government statistics) admits its methodology is defective. More disturbing, the administration appears to be in the pocket of the sitting government. The recent numbers appear to be cooked for the home stretch of the presidential election.
Eurostat, the EU office of statistics, will not certified to the Insee numbers.
With or without the banlieues French unemployment would be high. A large part of the problem is structural to the fabled French social model. Scrap the model and our guess is there would be work aplenty in France.
But much of France prefers the government provide the big and little amenities rather than rely on their own industry.
Regards,
DGB
