WHO SAID THAT IN AUGUST NOTHING EVER HAPPENS IN FRANCE?
While most of the French were still in snooze mode with
nothing on their horizon but La Rentrée,
when kids go back to school and parents back to work in early September, the
low hum of French holiday life was suddenly shattered on August 25th when Prime
Minister Manual Valls tendered his resignation and the government fell.
 |
| Dissenting ministers Montebourg and Hamon |
This was one attack too many by "loose cannon"
Montebourg, also referred to as Le Coq
Français, who is known for his anti-Europe and anti-globalization leanings.
Both Montebourg and Hamon were fired, followed by Culture Minister Aurélie Filippetti
who resigned in protest against Hollande's cutbacks in her department. After the shocking
results of the European elections in March where the French Socialist party
took a severe beating, the then-Minister of Ecology, Cécile Duflot, resigned
from her post over strong ideological differences with Mr. Hollande.
[She was replaced by Ségolène Royal, Hollande's ex, who was
happy to get back in government and obliged by canceling the Ecotax which
Hollande had found too difficult to implement.]
Duflot has since published a
book wherein she harshly criticizes François Hollande's veering to the right
and away from his socialist principles and promises.
 |
| Hollande with Emmanuel Macron, his new Economy Minister |
With his popularity at a new low (17% in the IFOP poll of
August 24), unemployment still rising (up another 0,8% in July), and the
economy at a total standstill (0% growth in the first sixth months of 2014),
President Hollande is in a bad spot.
The word amateurism is again on everybody's lips, as are his
indecisiveness and lack of leadership. While Hollande has reiterated that he
will not change his chosen course for economic recovery, it will be up to Prime
Minister Valls, and his new Cabinet freed of dissenters, to rally the troops
around the President's Pacte de
Responsabilité and the common cause of economic growth.
Halfway through President Hollande's first term with its creation
of such programs as the Pacte de
Competitivité and its Choc de
Simplification, intended to make French companies more competitive and
reduce the complexity and paperwork of doing business here, it may be a cruel
coincidence that just this week an article in The New York Times illustrated
how little effect these programs have had so far and how the "old ways"
to which the French cling like life rafts obstruct any attempts at
simplification or competition.
As Suzanne Daley writes in the August 23 International New
York Times (*), two young French business school graduates have been trying to
open a driving school in Paris that with the help of computer classes and
freelance instructors would provide a way to obtain a French driver's license
in much less time and at much lower cost than the current system allows. They
have run into a wall of regulations and are still waiting to obtain a license
to operate from the local Préfecture which
simply does not reply. Having complied with all the demands of this
"regulated profession" the young entrepreneurs are not welcome among
the expensive traditional schools (with waiting times of a year or more for the
sparsely allocated exams) who feel that the newcomers are "breaking the
rules" and are a threat to the old ways. The Choc de Simplification has not been felt in this area of
business.
On a personal note I can add that my husband and I have
obtained a French driver's license the old way at great mental and monetary
cost. Many foreigners settling in France can get a French license in exchange
for their valid foreign one, provided that their country has a reciprocity
agreement with France. The US does, except for the District of Columbia, where
we came from, and a few other States where French licenses are not recognized.
Consequently, people from those States have to get a French license with all
that implies: at least 20 classes of
driving theory (in French, of course) before you can take a driving test of
which there are only a few per year per school. When your number finally comes
up you take a zero-tolerance test in a stick-shift car without a right-hand
rearview mirror, with the curious French explanation that a rearview mirror is
only to be used in addition to your turning your head to see what's behind you.
 |
| Permis de conduire, old and new version |
I passed on the first try but my husband, who had been
driving for more than 45 years in different countries, failed twice and finally
passed on his third try. It was a costly and frustrating experience but, if
it's any consolation, you only need to do this once. A French driver's license
is issued for life! Another exception
française, and incomprehensible in this over-regulated country where an
80-year-old can still drive with his license issued at age 18 (and presumably
with his photo of age 18).
Go figure.
Go figure.
President Hollande may be making an attempt to reduce the mountain
of rules and regulations in France that makes doing business here so
frustrating and sends young people running to London, but in the true French
tradition he also tries to please everybody (read: all those threatened by
change) and ends up pleasing nobody. The
"Choc de Simplification" has run headlong into the wall of regulations
and died of a brain injury. R.I.P.
(*) Read the International NY Times article here:
