Why are the French in denial about capitalism?
Posted at: 11:46
Want to know why the French presidential elections, next year, will be (a) deeply depressing, and (b) damaging to the overall health of European politics?
Look no further than this astonishing poll, conducted by the reputable Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) based at the University of Maryland, just outside Washington, DC.
I owe thanks to the Eurosceptic think tank Open Europe for bringing it to my attention, but the survey's message should worry pro-Europeans, too - indeed anyone who has any affection for rational debate.
PIPA, together with the polling form Globalscan, asked 20,791 people in 20 large countries about their attitudes to the free market, and globalization. The key question asked respondents if they agreed or disagreed with the statement that "the free enterprise system and free market economy is the best system on which to base the future of the world."
In 19 countries, a plurality said yes - with the Chinese beating even Americans in showing the greatest enthusiasm for the new economic benefits, comforts, opportunities and freedoms that capitalism has brought them.
Fully 74 per cent of Chinese urbanites (the poll did not question rural dwellers in China) placed their faith in free enterprise. Others that were nearly as enthusiastic were the Philippines (73 per cent), the US (71 per cent), India (70 per cent), and Britain (66 per cent).
One country - France - disagreed strongly. Only 36 per cent of the French agreed that the free market economy is the best system, while 50 per cent disagreed.
French distrust of free enterprise far exceeded, by ten points or so, even such losers in the global capitalist rat-race as the Argentines and Russians.
The PIPA summary and the full results [PDF] are both available online.
Some of you may feel these results are unsurprising - perhaps you have been stuck in one of the amusing wildcat strikes that French airport and railway staff like to throw at the height of the tourist season, as they argue for the right to retire at 30 on a full pension, 10 hour weeks or whatever bone-in-the-nose nonsense has taken their fancy this time.
But there is one excellent reason why they should be astonishing - France is a highly successful capitalist nation, with a particular genius for globalisation. That is what is so maddening and alarming about these results - they show the impossible gap between French reality, and the deceitful, shallow rhetorical race to the bottom that is French political debate.
And this in a nation whose political elite is crammed with instinctive free marketeers, who know full well how important free trade is to their Republic, but dare not say so.
If you doubt my words about the virtues of French capitalism - just consider this thought experiment. Imagine a devoted British capitalist, a Telegraph reading stockbroker perhaps, getting up in his rural Essex home and commuting to the office, for a long day in the City.
Thanks to the French mania for buying up British privatized utilities, he gets his water from a French company (NWL, owned by Suez), and likewise his electricity (EDF) - indeed, the electricity may well come from a nuclear power plant across the Channel in France.
Walking down his garden path, he dodges the council binmen collecting his garbage (employed by Sita, a subsidiary of Suez), and catches a French-owned train into town (Connex).
He glances at his morning post - it includes the results of his health-check from his private insurance company, PPP (now owned by the French firm AXA). He eats too much fat, he is told. He makes a mental note to choose the healthy eating option at the staff canteen (run by the French global giant, Sodexho). I could go on.
The irony is, of course, that on their side of the Channel, the merest hint of privatization is enough to bring troglodytic French workers out on strike. Why are the French in such denial about being capitalists? Is it anti-Americanism, is it a childish, sentimental attachment to Socialism?
I have a hunch it is linked to the guilt, if that is the right word, that modern French citizens feel about the way they live their lives, and how they are turning their backs on the traditions that make them feel so good about themselves.
I mean the way that the French would like to buy their bread each morning from a village baker, and choose their vegetables with loving care from an open-air market stall, or feed their children with a home cooked pot-au-feu.
But of course, like the rest of the modern world, the French friends I know are busy people, and - except maybe at weekends, or when staying with granny in the country - they buy their bread at the local supermarket, along with salad in the bag and packs of ready meals.
No matter that France is rather good at supermarkets, and invented the hypermarket - it all makes them feel vaguely bad about themselves. So they end up hating the supermarket chains for running their local bakers out of business - even as they steer their Peugeots into the Carrefour car park. Guilt, hypocrisy and denial - it's a potent mix.
I seek guidance from French readers, or those who know France well.
One thing I know, though. The principles of EU free trade are already under fierce attack - I firmly believe it would not now be possible to start the Single Market project from scratch, for example.
With the French in such a uniquely hysterical mood about free enterprise, we can expect every major candidate in next year's president elections to run on an overtly protectionist, statist platform filled with fine-sounding rhetoric against big business. It will not do any of us any good.
Losers.
Cries loudly to make sure he's heard : Oh my, look at these defences across the Rhine ! They're great ! Let's hope they will not go through Belgium AGAIN !
