Jean-Claude SERGEANT

L'INTRADUIT CULTUREL DANS LA PRESSE ANGLO-SAXONNE

The Economist, "LEtat c'est L'Europe", 23 novembre 1991

(1) (3) Yet it is only recently that great An ancient regime events in Germany and Eastern Yet it is not only market truths that Europe have raised doubts about the have eroded the old France. The European course that France has French idea of the state as the taken. Ant it is still only a small, embodiment of liberty is another though growing, minority of the recent casualty — this time of the French on left and right who openly collapse of communism. The challenge the wisdom of it. Like the notion of a liberating state was Grande Arche, and Mr Mitterrand's long basic to France's belief that other dazzling monuments in Paris, its civilisation was a model for the the European Community is world. An essay on the future of the ordained from above: it is simply French identity, published recently there. by the French planning commis• sariat, points out that the state's power was considered legitimate in France because the state was (2) believed to be "culturally and French industrialists, too, who were morally superior to a hide-bound once inclined to see inflation as society." something that brought them That sense of state-righteousness growth, and devaluation as what shaped France's peculiarly Roman gave them competitiveness, are approach to colonialism. Across now strong-currency converts, the world, it helped various despite the painful rates of interest dictatorships of the proletariat feel involved. They have progressively virtuous, and numerous post- been weaned off the state as the colonial supremos pass them• centrepiece of their lives. Deprived selves off as l'état émancipateur. It of étatisme, they now find had a good run until recently, when themselves torn between the the idea of individual freedom Anglo-American model of reasserted itself across the third capitalism and Germany's social- world and exploded in Eastern market version. Europe. (4) (8) Next in the catalogue of challenges to On the European Community France's identity is the one to France's Brussels-style Europeanism is a fuite- defence policy. This remains the great en-avant. It's the hope offered to Gaullist symbol of French individual• voters that problems that can't be ism, with its expensive nuclear force de solved at home will be solved in frappe, and its aloofness from NATO Brussels. It's Father Christmas but tacit dependence upon America's Europe. It's the belief that in 1992 the presence in Europe and nuclear shield. French tiger will eat the Japanese doe and the German turkey. I reckon that it will be the other way round. (5) The atmosphere and institutions of the country's politics remain strikingly at (9) odds with the wealth and education of There is a mandatory minimum wage, the French people. They are permeated called the SMIC, which has been with the old-fashioned whiff of politi• allowed to rise steadily relative to the cal favour. They do not encourage average wage; it now stands at 57% of debate. They promote what they are it. The idea is well-meaning, but it has presumably designed to contain: poli• the perverse effect of choking off the tics played out as a series of physical supply of low-paid jobs — such as eruptions, between which Frenchmen nannying — or driving them under• shrug their shoulders and follow an old ground. The government is trying to pantomime, livened up, to be sure, do something about this with a tax- with attractive vedettes from the break for what is coyly called emploi grandes écoles. de proximité — home help.

(6) (10) The French like their mayors: they No city is complete without its mingle with the locals, play boules and "technopole" — a supposedly critical fix things across the board. The mass of hightech skills drawing in• president might almost be considered ward investors into its chain reaction. the mayor of France — with the Paris• ian monuments of François Mitterrand showing to what heights the power of the building-permit can be raised. (11) That reversal is becoming ever clearer. The word deconcentration is (7) now challenging decentralisation. But if Mr Le Pen strikes a chord with The latter is political autonomy; the his anti-immigrant tirades, what else former is greater freedom for local does he think might strike a chord with prefects to think for themselves and the Frenchman in the street? Your for their regions — not forgetting, of correspondent visited this scourge of course, that pay and promotion still the gauche caviare — the gilded come from Paris. National politicians left — at his fantastic house in the of all hues talk about the danger of aptly named Parc Montretout on the féodalisme — the creating of fiefs. bluff of St Cloud that overlooks Paris. Socialists flinch when they remember The mansion was that of the chef de that their decentralisation has led to cabinet of Napoleon III and was 18 out of 22 regions with opposition bequeathed to Mr Le Pen by an admirer. governments. (12) Certainly, ENA still provides proof of The revolutionary government chose exceptional brightness, and there has instead to develop technocratic recently been a wave of people grandes écoles set up by the ancien passing through it and then buying régime to train the public officials of their way out of their civil-service the state; in 1794 it created a new contracts. But that, too, depends upon elite among them, the Ecole Poly- the enduring eagerness of employers technique, and with it the selection for people who, in the words of one by competitive examination that énarque "have essentially done was to become such a feature of Sciences-po twice." French higher education. That champion of the regional city against the Paris mandarins, the mayor of Montpellier, has no illu• sions. "France is still run by civil servants. There is no difference bet• (13) ween a socialist énarque and a neo- Unless he or she is set upon a career Gaullist énarque. They are intelligent, as a high-flying civil servant, ENA uncorrupt and absolutely convinced no longer promises a young person they are right. The country is run by that much more than a climb through thousands of little Robespierres." Polytechnique and a specialist grande école, or through the business-geared grandes écoles, such as HEC (Hautes Etudes Commer• ciales), where competition for places (14) is now intense. In its heyday in the These are tough times for French 1960s and 1970s, ENA was banks. The glimmer of economic unbeatable as a credential. The recovery is offset, for them, by state's role in the economy was un• gathering gloom in the market for challenged. The school's cumulative commercial property in Paris. It can• output was still small. Its young not be ruled out that a painful phase for alumni were assured of powerful banking is going to slow the recovery government jobs, and after they had of the French economy and delay the served their term as civil servants, emergence of banks as the new they pulled on the pantouffles and eminences grises of French business. shuffled into industry and finance. Today the choice for the young a- chiever is getting tougher. As industry becomes less dependent (15) upon government — whether for Yet French habit and the shadow of ownership, loans or orders — its nationalism make Mr Albert's feared bosses become less inclined to hire ultra-liberalism improbable too. Who énarque fixers. And as the supply of nicely combines the way of the market pantouffles dries up, a log-jam with looking after one's own? The mounts in the civil service of 45- Germans. Like the Japanese, they have year-olds reluctant to abandon their mastered what one French official gilded desks to younger men. fondly calls planification á la privée. (16) (18) That list contains some good things An outright relapse into old-style for France, but it fails two key tests. protectionism, planification and First, little remains of Europe à la introversion is most improbable. Française — the new expression of Despite this autumn's protests, and France's state-based identity. The sense of political malaise, there late-1950s vision of an ever-closer remains too much confidence in the union of six, which was later ex• new France for that. True, many panded with strain to accommodate French businessmen still find it hard 12, is destined to be redefined in to shake themselves out of the old ways that make a Euro-identity less state-dependent habit. But the best comfortable for the French. among them, in big companies and in small, feel that they have much going for them: a competitive (17) workforce, a sound currency, a well- So, will those stirrings of resistance educated elite, a formidable in the neo-Gaullist RPR, and the infrastructure. The time for hobbling Euro-scorn of the National Front, industrious Germans with Euro- develop into full-throated revolt ? It obligations so that France could is not impossible. The long period continue to live a life of cultured of unquestioning consensus and rusticism has past. France's game dismissive indifference in French now is to emulate Gemany and to politics is worrying. This survey compete abroad, rather than repose has been a catalogue of pressures on foppishly, like Shakespeare's the French and Frenchness. The dauphin, in the courts of a fortress farmers, or the unemployed young, Europe. or unloved civil servants, or Despite de Gaulle's enduring legacy redundant defence workers could well in France's diplomatic posturings, a take to the streets and pressure the visitor to France today may notice government to wriggle out of the that the French have become more international constraints France has open-minded, less prickly, much accepted. Indeed, as this is written, readier — revealingly — to speak they have already started to do so. other languages (On s'anglo- Yet France has changed too durably saxonise de plus en plus, as one for such événements to cause it to remarked). Perhaps that is because revert to type. A gloomy view of their enviably equipped nation that change, put by one works so smoothly. Perhaps they quintessential énarque is that "we are see that they have achieved an in the process of becoming a soft almost Germano-Nordic level of democracy with soft opinions and wealth — with twice the native soft convictions". Mr Gomez, of ability to turn it into the good life. Thomson-CSF, fears a phase of a Such strengths explain why the "soft, social-democratic establish• recent paradox of France — that ment" equivalent to the phases of France made Europe, but then Europe weak conservatism that lulled post• remade France — will survive the war Britain. coming troubles. The Economist, "No Escape ?", 25 novembre 1995

(1) (4) No government in any country likes Ever since the 1950s, France's taking on powerful lobbies or venge• solution to the German problem has ful strikers; but it does so, if it does been to integrate Europe. French so, in the belief that the consequent dreams would be realised through the unpopularity will be limited or short• medium of a united Europe. French lived and eventually outweighed by a grandeur would be European grandeur wider recognition that its actions — not an ideal arrangement for a were necessary. In most democracies, chauvinist country like France, but the worst that can befall a govern• one that recognised the realities of ment that miscalculates is a spell in Germany's strength and France's opposition. In France, the spectre is relative lack of it. not of opposition but of 1968: 10m workers out on strike, riots in the streets and bourgeois society (5) choking on its croutons. The franc fort has certainly contributed to the two main blemishes on the face of the French (2) economy, high unemployment and A second contradiction concerns the huge public deficit. Their French nationalism. Nationalism was seriousness is in large measure a more or less invented in France, in consequence of France's political the 18th century, and has proved decision to hold to its EMU aims. strangely durable: the French assert This may seem harsh. According to themselves, and their nation's none other than Hans Tietmeyer, grandeur, more vigorously and head of Germany's Bundesbank and consistently than any other people not a noted lover of EMU, the franc is in Western Europe. Every speech of "still one of Europe's strong every politician is replete with currencies". Yet according to references to la France. Yet the currency speculators, the franc is not French are also the leaders, with so secure that it might not be Germany, of the effort to integrate knocked off its perch. They are both Europe, and are committed to what right. they call its "construction". Just what this commitment means can be questioned, but a commitment it is. (6) By certain standards, some of these companies have done pretty well, (3) especially those entrusted with the The state still plays a large part in grands projets that the French are so France. It spends 55% of GDP, a fond of. In general, where the state higher proportion than in any other has been both owner and customer, big industrial country. More import• and where research and development ant, the state plays a large part in the has required pots of money, France French psyche. For centuries l'état has produced some spectacular has been at once an engine of change, successes. Its fast trains, which provider of continuity, employer, whisk passengers around the country servant, deliverer, tormentor, symbol at up to 300 kilometres per hour of pride, source of irritation. (185mph), are one example. (7) Eight ministers in the current So France developed a system of government are énarques (as well as grandes écoles, specialised schools 40 members of parliament). Mr that take only the cleverest students Chirac and Mr Juppé are both ENA and train them to run the country. men; so is Mr Jospin, the Socialist They are, in the true sense of the leader, and Mr Balladur, Mr Chirac's word, an elite, that is, a chosen Gaullist rival. And then there are the group. For years this elite served polytechniciens, the graduates of the France well: it has played a large technical equivalent of ENA, the part in mitigating the costs of state Ecole Polytechnique, who are known ownership. Now its role is contro• as les X. versial, not least because so many of Over the years these men (female its members have moved out of the énarques are a rarity) have served public sector into private industry. France well. Clever, trained to This is especially true of the analyse and take the long view, énarques, the graduates of the Ecole taught at least two foreign languages Nationale d'Administration, set up and thus exposed to the world in a after the war. In doing so, they have way many Frenchmen are still not, brought their skills, attitudes and they helped after the war to give connections to private industry ; France a sleek civil service and a some think they have also brought a relatively efficient public sector. disguised form of state control. High-tech Colbertism could not have been made to work without them, especially the polytechniciens. This year, however, they have been under (8) attack, even by Mr Chirac himself, The soft-shoe shuffle who criticised the old-boy network The French buy more slippers than during the presidential-election any other nation — about a pair a campaign. year per person. The French word for slipper is pantoufle. The French One charge is that the education word for migrating from the public given by ENA and the four main to the private sector is pantoufler. grands corps that it serves no longer There is certainly a lot of it about, offers the training needed for and it is one reason why business in an internationally privatisation is not quite what it competitive world. Another is that appears. That quintessential public enarchy leads to a lack of servant, the énarque, is everywhere originality, a single view or pensée at the top of French industry. Of unique. A third is that the perks and France's biggest 200 companies, privileges of the elite could be over 40 are headed by énarques. New• tolerated when its members devoted ly privatised companies —those, it themselves to public service, but might be said, that have not, as now, when so many énarques pantouflés — are particularly likely are driven by personal ambition and to be entrusted to an énarque : a safe material gain. A fourth is that the pair of hands, well known to the system, particularly pantouflage, Treasury, probably indeed to the perpetuates the state's influence, if minister. not control, over industry. In defence of enarchy The motto is : "Better inefficient As always in France, evidence can be and French than efficient and found both to support and to rebut foreign." Certainly, one of the these charges. Thus Claude Bébéar, an effects of the noyau dur policy has X (albeit an untypical one, having been to insulate French business spent his career in his company), from pressures for restructuring. presides with great success at AXA, one of the world's largest insurance and financial-services groups. Marc Vié- not, an énarque, is coping well at (10) Société Générale, one of the big bank• Some of these contradictions can be ing groups. On the other hand, Michel divined from Mr Chirac's election Pébereau, a former number-two at the promises : to cut taxes, raise wages, Treasury and another énarque, is hav• increase public spending and avoid ing less success at Banque Nationale any rationing of health care, while de Paris. And enarchy, especially the at the same time reducing unemploy• énarque 's view of his own inerrancy, is ment, cutting the public-sector widely said to be responsible for the deficit and healing France's fracture colossal losses at Crédit Lyonnais. sociale. In these pledges, populism Jean Peyrelevade, the bank's new and the traditional social concern of head, is a strong critic of the a Christian Democrat predominated. traditional French way of running a big business, and says he believes in recruiting on merit rather than from the grandes écoles — though he is himself an X and he has been happy to (11) hire an inspecteur des finances, Whether through direct ownership, perhaps the most exalted of the elite. énarques or cross-holdings, the state still influences much of industry, even if it no longer formally (?) engages in planification. None• theless, the picture is changing. Moreover, the French propensity for cross-holdings, in which large banks and companies typically own shares in other banks and companies, often ensures that the state can go on influ• (12) encing even private-sector firms. The Yet the French are no different from central aim, it is true, is to keep them other nations when it comes to French, by creating a hard core, or budget cuts : they believe in them noyau dur, of French shareholders. as long as they touch other people's State influence is not central to the benefits, not their own. The state, policy. But sometimes there is little they assert, should be the protector difference in France between a state- of the acquis sociaux, the entitle• owned company and a private one : ment system, which is what I have; when private PSA Peugeot-Citroen put privilege is what others have, and the arm on the government this sum• that should be cut. Sooner or later, mer to give subsidies to car buyers, it someone will have to explain that got its way. the distinction is bogus. (13) It would have fewer jobless and a less menacing National Front, but it would still have fracture sociale, the object of so much of Mr Chirac's (and Mr Séguin's) concern. This is partly because some of the social fracture in France is of a kind seldom mentioned by politicians. It is the kind that gives France the highest alcohol consumption in the world, the biggest number of AIDS cases in Europe, one of the highest male suicide rates, the highest number of psychiatrists in Europe and a taste without parallel for tranquillisers, sleeping-pills and other psycho• tropic drugs. A consequence of unemployment? Maybe. Or maybe a reflection of the F-factor.

(14) (15) Even French philosophes seem to be Yet France has been going down the in decline. European road for half a century. The But that does not mean the French long view, the impossibiliy of are philistines, or have lost their considering the alternatives, the sense of style. On the contrary, the centrality of relations with French aesthetic sense still Germany, the potential split on the combines with the F-factor to give right: all these combine to keep France a public face that has few France on the old, familiar, poplar- rivals. This arises not just from a lined route nationale. Above all, respect for handsome buildings and a would Mr Chirac want to take his liking for grands travaux. It comes place in history as the man who also from a belief that cities, as well pulled France off that road, and as individuals, should be soignées. ruined the European dream?