4 out of 5 Daschle's surveyed agree.
Posted on 09/06/2005 9:19:28 AM PDT by anymouse
French morale is at its lowest ebb for 10 years with this year's return to work after the summer vacations. A poll carried out exclusively for La Tribune by the CSA institute reveals that 73% of French people are pessimistic about how the economic situation will develop in the next six months, as against 64% last year. You have to go back to August 1996 to find such a level of anxiety. At that time the country feared the effects of the advent of the euro and was emerging from a social crisis following the strikes in the winter of 1995 against the reform of pensions in the public sector.
A hazardous task. "The new fact this year compared with the return to work in 2004 is that the crisis of confidence has spread to the whole of French society and now affects the upper classes," Jean-Daniel Levy, who ran the poll, notes. In the past the surveys showed a very clear break between the social groups, the well-off and graduates feeling safer than the more modest. That is no longer the case. For the first time, pessimism has now spread to all the social strata. When they returned to work in 2004 51% of the group of managers, liberal professions, and intermediate professions said that they were still optimistic. One year on, the percentage has dropped to 24%. A degree no longer protects you from anxiety. In the space of a year the number of people showing optimism has thus dropped from 32% to 27% among French people without a degree, but from 54% to 25% for the group which has successfully completed a two-year course of university studies.
In this context the task of Dominique de Villepin, who gave himself 100 days to "recreate the conditions of confidence" when he arrived at the Matignon [prime minister's office] at the beginning of June, has proved to be hazardous. The poll delivers the cruel proof that the prime minister has lost his bet. Eighty percent of French people consider that he has been unable to restore confidence to the country in the short period that he set himself. The most critical are found in the 30-to-49-year-old age bracket and among managers and members of the liberal professions, where the percentage goes up to 85%. Even the majority of UMP [Union for a Popular Movement] sympathizers have not been persuaded, since 68% of them deem that Dominique de Villepin has failed in his commitment to restore confidence in three months.
Drastically reduced purchasing power. Even the new hiring contract, the flagship measure of the emergency plan for employment put in place this summer is failing to persuade. Only 32% of French people -- and, more surprisingly, barely one in two heads of company -- deem this new contract effective in reducing unemployment. Purchasing power is the priority concern at the return to work this year. Ninety-one percent of respondents expect their purchasing power to worsen in the coming months, that is to say, the highest level for 10 years. Among managers the percentage reaches the record figure of 95%. It is not surprising in these conditions that almost 40% of French people are getting ready to curb their consumption this fall, as against 30% last year. Three percent plan to increase it, and 58% to maintain it where it is.
Admittedly, the poll was carried out at the end of August, before the presentation of the "social growth" recovery plan, put forward by the prime minister 1 September, which contains a package of measures to boost incomes. This plan corresponds then to the expectations of the French people, 57% of whom put increasing purchasing power at the top of the priorities the government should define for this fall, ahead of the fight against the relocations of industry (53%). It is not certain, however, that the measures announced, a large number of which will enter into application only in 2007, are capable of allaying the impatience.
Last year the defense of purchasing power occupied third spot in French people's expectations, behind relocations and the reduction of companies' welfare contributions. While the prime minister announced Thursday [ 1 September] a reform of income tax for 2007, with a reduction of tax brackets from 6 to 4, the reduction of direct taxes comes only in fourth place in the priorities that the government should set, this topic being cited by 45% of respondents. More curiously, among managers the topic of income tax reduction follows up the rear (32%), a long way behind purchasing power (66%), the fight against relocations of industry (52%), and the reduction of public spending (57%).
Yep, that should do it.
Isn't socialism beautiful ???
France is the perfect petri dish for examining the kind of secular socialism that the Democrats want for America.
"They should mandate a maximum 15 hour workweek, and also pass legislation mandating unemployment levels below 5%."
They work over 15 hours/week? Mon dieu...
Usually, when their morale is this low, they just surrender. But the problem now is: to whom would they surrender? This intractable existential question simply further depresses their morale. There is No Exit.
Schadenfraude
Now, now, now don't exaggerate. Canada is a much better example! ;)
This is your economy on socialism, any questions...?
The French need to face facts and change their national anthem from that stirring one to this
old-timey church song:
'I surrender now . .
I surrender now . .
All to [Insert Name of Opponent] I surrender,
I surrender now.'
(It almost has a salsa beat, don't you think?)
how deeply saddening.
Welcome to a socialist paradise!
At least they are more equally miserable.
Poor miserable frogs caught in their own depressing quagmire.
Has Bush been blamed yet?
They, (Davis and crew) tried it in California. It blew up in their faces and bankrupted the state.
4 out of 5 Daschle's surveyed agree.
They're delaying what could turn their economy around in favor of spending more and more. Dems probably think that'll be their savior. And some 'Pubbies here must be just as dim.
If a Frenchman falls in the forest and cries 'surrender!' and no one hears him, does he make a sound?
My sister-in-law was stranded near the French alps for nine days last month waiting for a car part and said she was treated like poison.
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