Possibly a ray of hope for my roof. Christine Albanel, the Minister of Culture has just announced a surtax on four-star hotels – each person staying in a so-called luxury hotel will be charged an extra 2 euro a night. In theory those 2 euro will go towards putting a new roof on my house.

Just after New Year, if you remember, it rained particularly heavily. When I got home after a couple of nights away I found rain-water had come right through the top floor of the house (having passed through the roof first, you understand) into my bedroom and the front living room. Carpets, a chest of drawers, clothes were soaked. Upstairs in my study it was considerably worse, since many books, magazines and papers had been deluged. Having been empty for few days the house was, of course, cold and I had to light fires in all the rooms to dry things out – since it was still raining the house smelled of damp carpets for over a week.

I have often priced re-roofing the house – but it’s fiercely expensive. Periodically men in Mercedes turn up and pace around under the eaves pointing airily upwards and saying as well as the slates I must replace all the voliges (the thick wooden planks lining the roof), replace several of the beams, joists and whatnot. Then just as airily they hand me a five-figure quote. Others say that’s not necessary, just replace the slates (have new ones shipped in from Scotland, they say) – but I worry that’s just putting a new skin on a rotten skeleton. Once an architect from the Monuments Historiques concluded his visit by saying, straight-faced: “Monsieur King, even if you have a completely new roof, voliges and all, it will still leak. It is in the nature of a roof to leak.” When I asked if I could touch the Monuments Historiques for a couple of grand to repair the roof, it was his turn to assume I was joking: “Ah, l’humour anglais!”, he laughed, wiping his eyes. “You think the Monuments Historiques has money!” That set him off again “Oh that’s the best one I’ve heard for a long time.”

So maybe Christine Albanel’s plan is just what I need. Her people have calculated that each year there are enough nuitées (what a wonderful word) in posh hotels for her surtax of 2€ to generate 50 million euro a year. That should satisfy the greediest roofer, but of course it has to be shared out amongst the other 43,232 other buildings listed by the Monuments Hysteriques. It works out at just over a thousand euro for each house. That’s the trouble.

The tragic part of this story is that M. Eschlimann, who dreamed up the idea of taxing the sleeping to pay for the crumbling, originally suggested a much lower surtax, but on every hotel’s nuitées (why does that word sound so naughty?). He suggested 0.13€ per night which would raise not 50 million but 170 million. It was rejected – but why? Mme Albanel’s logic is that a 2€ surtax will not be felt amongst those paying on average, she says, 200€ a night. That’s 1%. I don’t know what the average ordinary hotel bill is but recently I’ve been paying 50€ minimum in the provinces: 1% of that is 50 centimes. M. Eschlimann suggested a mere 13 centimes. And it raises more than three times as much. I do sometimes wonder what is wrong with French (higher) education: one of France’s best-qualified architects of historic buildings says that roofs will always leak, and a bunch of enarques at the Ministry of Culture believe raising 50 million is preferable to raising 170 million (in a country where “les caisses sont vides”). I have the impression common sense is not on the syllabus (although of course the very phrase “common sense” has no exact equivalent in French). Another element of common sense missing from this affair: you might think the Ministry of Culture would discuss their plans with other ministries concerned, such as the Ministry of Finance. But no - and that particular ministry was furious when they heard (in the press) of the proposed surtax. It has its own, rather different plans for France’s hotels and will almost certainly squash the Albanel initiative. So my roof will continue to deteriorate.

France has an incredibly rich patrimoine of historic buildings, but fully 78% are in a terrible state and are in need of massive investment. There was talk of closing Amiens cathedral, for example, because it is potentially dangerous to the public. Is that possible? There is more and more talk in hallowed circles of demolishing churches – only recently considered sacrosanct. On my desk is a photograph of a bull-dozer in the middle of a roofless church, smashing its way through the nave. There is something offensive, barbarian about it. But several thousand communes are realising they cannot afford to keep up their churches (churches are owned by the state and it is up to the local mayor to maintain them). As more and more wage-earners leave France profonde, rural communes dwindle and only the elderly remain, so local rates cannot be raised to encompass expensive restoration. But there is no equivalent of the National Trust, a private organisation dedicated to the upkeep of old buildings, paid for by members and tourists, which, with English Heritage, is responsible for the healthy state of Britain’s old stones. And as far as I know nobody has thought of converting churches into dwelling spaces to make their restoration rentable. Strangely that might be considered more sacrilegious than knocking them down.

Re-assuring news for readers of my piece about Rachida Dati’s new bill on keeping certain long-term prisoners locked up for the rest of their days: a legal committee within the Senate has just thrown out the offending paragraphs (which you will remember were added at the last minute as amendments and voted through at 2.30 a.m. to an almost deserted chamber). According to one member of the committee, the version voted “didn’t stand up” (ne tenait debout). I find it staggering that paid representatives vote through laws which lawyers then say “don’t stand up”. Anyway, said a journalist in Les Echos, the text would have been in contradiction with the European Convention on Human Rights – so would have been thrown out by Europe anyway. What caused the fuss, not surprisingly, was the retroactive nature of the proposed law, which would have affected all those already sentenced to long stretches.

The law itself highlights one of the weaknesses of our society. As Les Echos says: “the text was promised this summer by Nicolas Sarkozy following two big news stories and examined en procédure d’urgence.” In other words rushed through as a crowd-pleaser. We inevitably criticise Americans when Washington fails to ban guns after a shooting incident, but our alternative of rushing round trying to pass half-baked laws after every gruesome but not necessarily deep-rooted crime is not much better.

On another level note the phrase “the text was promised by Nicolas Sarkozy”. Are you keeping a list of all those promises unkept? Look on the bright side - watch the final of the Australian open with that truly inspirational Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. What’s the betting that Sarkozy flies on from India to Melbourne to be photographed with the Mohammed Ali look-alike? With France’s second bank in tatters, and nobody apparently knowing what to do with the world’s No.1 bank frauder, Sarkozy needs to be seen with France’s 5th-ranked (sic!) tennis-player to boost his image. Sarkozy used to fancy himself as a tennis man - cue photo-opportunity………..

Two other thoughts about the last blog. Listening to these very clever people going round and round in circles with their fixed a priori, I understood completely why a Russian, who wanted to reinvent not France but just dance in the early years of the last century, listening to a young Frenchman who was doubtlessly going on and on in exactly the same way as his compatriots 100 years later, cut him short and simply said “Etonne-moi.” Turned and went away. Short, sharp, practical. Get on with it. The voluble young man was so shocked he left the room shaking. But wisely he thought about the advice, and followed it.
Second supplementary reflection: one speaker launching the afternoon debate, a young man called Philippe Hayat, brought a breath of fresh air to the seminar. 18 months ago he decided that young people at school needed to understand (and therefore lose their fear and hatred for) the word and concept “entrepreneur”. He didn’t wait for some civil servant to process his request to visit schools, he simply started visiting them, giving talks. It is a success, and surprise surprise government departments are queueing up to give his association money, to expand, to have branches throughout France. His association is called 100,000 entrepreneurs. There was a guy who 1) identified the problem (get rid of the taboo on enterprise) 2) did something about to correct it. Did it himself, without waiting. Not only that, but M. Hayat spoke clearly, a well-thought-out, concise piece. Both it and he were ignored for the rest of the afternoon. No one addressed any questions to him, no one took up any of his points, but carried on with their previous spats about ideology. After an hour, perhaps realising no one was interested, M. Hayat left.

Earlier this week in Paris a seminar organised by the French bureau of Aspen Institute to discuss how to “reinvent France”. 40 potential movers and shakers invited to share their reflections on what is fast becoming France’s favourite topic. In the event, however, trying to reinvent France was about as easy as trying to reinvent the wheel – both have served admirably in the past, both are solid and well-loved creations resisting any attempt to change them. Both may have been surpassed in certain fields, but both are still necessary.

We discussed whether or not France was in decline and if so why? No surprises there: brakes on employment; too many laws, many of which don’t work; too many taboo subjects (competition, capitalism, success, failure – and anything in between); the young are penalised, there is a growing generational rift; equality of opportunity does not exist; equality tout court does not exist; too much ideology, refusal to look reality in the face; the French impossibility of working with each other.

Others said that if France is in decline, then so are many other countries, we’re not worse than the other. Oh yes we are, look at the amount of poverty in France, especially amongst those who are in work. Ah, but the world is changing faster than during the Industrial Revolution and it’s tough keeping up….

Was there was some other country’s model to copy and if so whose? The Anglo-saxon model was (of course) generally decried as insufferably inhuman. Why? Because it encourages part-time jobs, multiple jobs, badly paid jobs and insecure jobs, all of which, most agreed, are unacceptable. Well, if you look at the common denominator in that list of unacceptables, jobs, they might be quite useful in France just now. Ah yes we need jobs, but not just any job. Ah, mon ami, that is where your problem lies: you are not hungry enough!

But more interestingly the opposite of the hated Anglo-Saxon model, Colbertian state intervention, was equally unacceptable. One particularly bold man, a youngish, bullish investment banker, argued coherently with endless rapid-fire (and thus unverifiable) statistics that the old French model was still the best. But he took a battering from others present who clearly thought he was way beyond his sell-by date. The net result was that too much energy was spent dismissing other people’s ideas and far too little actively constructing something useful.

The surprises came from a woman working in the Ministry of Economics who said quite rightly that the French should look at what jobs have not been created, especially part-time jobs for students. People have not worked hard enough at where they want to go. The disappointment principally from the two veteran politicians present – a former Italian minister of the economy and Frits Bolkestein, former European Commissioner. Both trotted out tired old formulae to which nobody listened. There was a fascinating moment when the only black person who bothered to turn up (Eric Dogo, an entrepreneur. Two beurs had been invited, one came for the lunch but didn’t stay for any of the discussions, the other I didn’t see at all) talked briefly and passionately about the inequality of opportunity in French society. The fascinating part was not what he said but watching the 38 other people: all looked at their feet, watches, cell-phones, shuffled papers. Actors could not have played both “embarrassment” and “lack of concern” better. Since the two other beurs invited didn’t turn up, it’s fair to say that he was the only non-white there, there were far less than 20 women, and the great majority of the men were over 50 – and (having made a film about them last year I can tell them just by the way they sit and look round the room) perhaps a surplus of enarques. They excel at recycling well-worn ideas (some of which are well-worn because they are good) – although a few, like Elizabeth Lulin, are innovating and doing much more exciting things.

For me the highlight of the day happened during lunch. An unknown face appeared at my table and I heard him saying how much he enjoyed (or perhaps appreciated) “ton blog”. I looked over my should to see who he was talking to. When I realised he meant me I genuinely couldn’t believe it, although there were two or three editors of Les Echos around who might perhaps read Prospect. I thanked him, but was so surprised I couldn’t think of a gracious way of asking who he was. His name-badge meant something (a 16-syllable Dutch-sounding name) and I stammered out some absurd banality. Someone (the bullish anti-UK banker) said something about Versac. Versac? - now there’s a model worth emulating – one of the very best French blogs, which has already and continues to reinvent a good part of France. I assumed the man must be a guest writer on Versac, but no this was the man himself. He thinks it’s worth crossing the crowded restaurant floor to introduce himself to me?

Yesterday a new magazine hit the news-stands in France – well it didn’t actually make it as far as my local news-agent down here but I am sure it made it to the big towns. Its name is XXI and the main interest to this blog is that its editorial policy is to treat subjects in depth, with long articles and without advertising – so very different from what is called here the zapping médiatique généralisé. In other words readers of Prospect Magazine will surely recognise a kindred spirit. Indeed XXI is unashamedly modelled on Atlantic Monthly and the New Yorker – in many ways like Prospect. Had people in France heard of Prospect, doubtless it would have been added to XXI’s progenitors.

There are of course differences. As reported in Rue 89 XXI comes out only four times a year, runs to 200 pages and costs 15€. It includes photo-documentaries and strip cartoons. The first print-run is 40,000 copies – from memory higher than Prospect’s.

The first issue carries fully 67 pages on Russia – different aspects including tracing the career of Anna Politkovskaya and looking at Russian capitalism. Apparently most articles run to about 12 pages of single-spaced Word, or about 7,000 words – where again from memory Prospect’s long articles run to a little less although some, like my article on the fight against corruption in France, ran to about 8,500.

Although I doubt it will be easy to find copies of XXI in the UK (any more than you can find Prospect in France) diligent readers of Prospect need not feel out of the loop as far as coverage of France is concerned. I notice from Rue 89’s synopsis of the first issue that there are articles on OGM crops, the French phenomenon of civil disobedience and Michel Onfray – all three of which have been covered in Prospect’s France Profonde column. Don’t forget, you read it first in Prospect.

Rue 89 also tells us that another in depth magazine is planned to appear in France this summer. There is even a third, slightly different but very well produced serious quarterly magazine called, irrationally, Mook, which appeared just before Christmas and will also be quarterly. I shall be writing about Mook in more detail later. Mook is published by one of France’s best-known editors, Henry Dougier who founded Autrement, a series of books which looks at France and the rest of the world autrement. The aim of his new brain-child aim is to look at aspects of France which are working well (not the obvious things but off-radar stuff) and aims to bring out an English edition later this year (not an English translation, but its own, independent edition) which may involve your dedicated correspondent: I go to Paris on Monday for discussions.

The parliamentary members of Sarkozy’s UMP party were delighted last week by Tony Blair’s relaxed manner of speaking, and by his sense of humour – both of which, many noted, contrast strongly with their own master’s constantly jabbing forefinger and aggressive neck thrusts worthy of a bad actor on The Bill. Blair caused great merriment when he admitted that until he left 10 Downing Street he had never used a cell-phone – the French President is obsessed with showing everyone that his phone is busy all the time. Even during moments of great solemnity, such as signing contracts with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Sarkozy was far more interested in making sure photographers saw him checking his messages. So feeble was Sarkozy’s reply to Blair (he seemed to think, for example, that the Battle of Austerlitz was against the English) that Valérie Pécresse, Sarkozy’s usually archi-loyal Minister of Higher Education, is quoted as saying: “Whoever wrote Sarko’s speech is going to get the chop, compared to Blair’s it was such rubbish.” I would imagine for allowing herself to be overheard saying that she’s another one who, come the re-shuffle, is up for the chop.

These are worrying times for democracy in France. The extreme feebleness of the opposition is encouraging and allowing ministers to get away with far too much. The recent law on the recidivism of dangerous criminals is one example. Just after Christmas Rachida Dati, the Minister of Justice, who is not an elected member of parliament, published details of the bill, a supplement if you like to her earlier law on delinquent recidivists. The idea is that since even those criminals sentenced to life imprisonment are released after 15 or 20 years, and since a small number of them have, on release, committed further horrific crimes, there has to be a way of keeping those who do not seem safe locked up until they die.

Dati’s idea was to set up a group of experts to assess the really worst offenders as they reach the end of their stretch and decide whether or not they can ever be released or instead go to a secure prison/hospital for the rest of their lives. The idea that a non-judicial committee should be able to have a person locked up until his or her death, not for a specific crime already committed but for an unspecified one which they might or might not commit at some future unspecified date, jarred with many. Mme Dati addressed those worries and assured us that she was legislating for “between ten and fifteen dangerous criminals”. That small number, who many assumed would mean only the very worst of paedophiles, child murderers etc, re-assured many doubters, in particular the parliamentarians from her own party who would vote the bill through.

However on the 9th January, during the debate in the National Assembly and just hours before the vote, a couple of unannounced amendments were slipped in. They change the bill considerably so that it now affects any criminal already sentenced to 15 or more years for “atteinte à la personne”. In other words the new law is retro-active, and affects all those currently serving time for a serious crime. The Ministry of Justice cannot provide statistics for how many prisoners are in that category, but Le Canard Enchainé estimates in involves several thousand – certainly it will affect considerably more than “between ten and fifteen dangerous criminals”. The amendments were tacked on to the bill with a minimum of debate and the bill voted a few hours later, at 2.30 on the morning of January 10th in an almost empty Assemblée Nationale.

The worrying aspect, for me, is not that ministers try it on, but that the opposition is silent. Out-manouevred every time by the increasingly self-confident law-makers. Even afterwards nothing was said about, for example, that old French chestnut the rights of man. The new law may not make it through the Senate, or may be ground down by the Conseil Constitutionel because of its retroactive nature or because it sentences people to a lifetime in custody for crimes they have not committed and for which no court has found them guilty. But they won’t throw it out because of popular disapproval.

It may not be as sexy a subject as Sarkozy’s girlfriends (or is Carla now Mrs. Sarkozy?), so the press have not given it much space, but it is far more important. For me it’s the key to the future of France: the reform - or not - of the Code du Travail. After four months’ negotiation an agreement between the employers’ union and some of their social partners has been reached on a few aspects, and that in itself is a major step forward. It means that most of the trades unions are publicly willing to accept and indeed initiate certain reforms. There are still many areas where they cannot agree with the bosses, but they are willing at least to keep talking.

The word everyone is now banding about is flexisecurité à la française, an adaptation of the Danish employment system. The emphasis is of course on à la française, and that is where danger signals flicker. As when French cooks adopt a foreign dish, the result can be good – as long as you’ve never tasted the original. (I’m thinking of the now ubiquitous apple crumble à la française, which is a lot about apple and very little about crumble.) Flexisecurité à la française has one vital ingredient missing from the original Danish recipe, but I’ll come to that in a minute.

The flexi-bit, the major concession won by the employers’ union, is that employers will have a legally defined grace period during which they can agree “amicably” to part company from a new recruit. Previously this was ad hoc. The trades unions are also willing to countenance short-term contracts up to three years for a particular, defined project, but for management and engineers only – this is new. However the employers have had to give up hoping they would be able to sever ties by mutual agreement with someone who has a job for life. Once the grace period is over, the recruit becomes a fully-fledged, old-fashioned employee, still virtually unsackable except by force and legal complication. Desperate to make a deal and improve by however little the present Code which is heavily weighted against them, the employers’ union realised that one was unwinnable.

As well as that victory, the trades unions have won the guarantee that when the sacked worker finds another job he or she will not have to start again from the bottom, but will keep whatever status their previous training has given them. Their supplementary health insurance will also be transferred to the new company. The unions have also won easier access to unemployment benefits for the person who is sacked. That’s the securité-bit, which unfortunately (but perhaps inevitably in France) is longer than the flexi-bit. Ominously, discussions about further guarantees will be resumed later.

The crucial ingredient missing from flexisecurité à la française is the close support of a professional team encouraging the person who has lost his or her job. In Denmark that has proved an excellent psychological pressure to accept another job – to please one’s team.

All this may seem arcane to outsiders, but it is the stuff of which France is made. Certainly the agreement is only a first step, and if employers want to be able to respond quickly to changes the existing rules need to be softened up further – four months of negotiations was not enough. Even so, one union, the CGT, accuses the bosses of “doing nothing to reduce job insecurity or to favour job creation.” But even though the CGT refuses to sign the agreement, it looks as though it will be passed without, for once, France taking to the street. And that in itself is an advance.

It was a pretty fundamental error: purchasing power, another way of saying the cost of living, is the prime French concern, ahead of unemployment and insecurity. It became an election issue and the candidate Sarkozy announced that if elected he should be judged on whether he gave his compatriots more purchasing power. So on Tuesday, during his first press conference as president, jaws dropped when he replied to the question what exactly he was going to do about it, with “What do you expect me to do about it? Empty the state coffers, which are already empty? Do you want me to give orders to private companies, which I don’t have the power to do?” Sarkozy’s rhetorical retort was not only unnecessarily aggressive (he had after all invited the 600 journalists there specifically to ask him questions), it was not only a slap in the face to all those who voted for him because he called himself ‘the president of purchasing power’, it was an extraordinary admission of his present powerlessness. This is the new Sarkozy - and not a good portent for the future. The 2007 pre-election model was “Together we can do anything”, the 2008 post-election model is a petulant “What do you expect me to do about it?” Not so much rupture as the return of the infamous Gallic shrug.

It is a particularly interesting error because up until now Sarkozy’s trade mark has been his skilful command of communication. That appears to be slipping - or perhaps he believes it doesn’t matter what he says, communication, or spin, is so powerful and his mastery of it so great that he can get away with anything.

For that, as they say, is not all. Another of the 600 journalists asked: “Do you want 2008 to see the end of the 35 hour week?” A simple, straightforward question to which the president replied in a simple straightforward way: “To say things as I think them, yes.” He wishes to see the end of the present legal limit on the number of hours one can work, which makes sense since he and others have tinkered with the legislation so much it is now a chaos of jumbled rules and counter-rules. But next day he was back-tracking at full speed: forget ending the 35 hour week, he said, “in 2008 I want us to go further in the reform of the 35 hour week”. Yet more rules to muddle up and contradict the existing ones. “I want to increase overtime, so I want to keep the legal limit on the working week.” (In itself an unrealistic assumption, made by someone who has never worked within a company, as though overtime were a matter of personal choice, not dependent on overflowing order-books.) He has done this before – say things in the heat of the moment, off-the-cuff but on-camera which he has to retract the following day – allowing concessions to the striking fishermen in Brittany, for example. But the 35-hour week business illustrates his fundamental problem: on the one hand, “To say things as I think them”, he wants to open up French companies to slightly more deregulation, a nod to the Anglo-Saxons. But politically he dare not – not only because he fears the sort of no-win confrontation De Villepin faced with his 2006 labour reforms for young people, but also because in French minds the 35-hour week has become a potent symbol of France – work less, relax more with the family, put living at the centre of life. Equally important, pushing the working week to 38 or 39 hours would mean more lay-offs, since in many industries there simply is not the demand, or the demand is already being satisfied in other ways such as out-sourcing. Domestic demand will only rise when people feel they have more money to spend – more purchasing power. But that, as the president so eloquently told us, is beyond his capabilities.

François Fillon, who, if you remember, is France’s Prime Minister, says that the new Sarkozy – the one who says things to the press he doesn’t mean, who no longer seems able or even interested in improving his compatriots’ lives – is the product of his infatuation with (sorry, love for) Carla Bruni. Quoted by Le Canard Enchainé, the PM says that now “when you talk to him he doesn’t always listen, he cancels meetings. I wonder how all this is going to end.” In short, the president is behaving like a love-sick adolescent, allowing his sex-life (sorry, his deep lurve) to dominate his thoughts. Signora Bruni is now apparently installed with her own music-room in the Palace – the very place her very recent predecessor refused to live because it is so uncongenial. Now that Nicolas Sarkozy has fulfilled one adolescent dream, to be the most powerful man in France, he is living out another adolescent fantasy – pulling beautiful women (even if the press insists on calling her an ex-supermodel, as though her beauty were a thing of the distant past, and listing all her other lovers, including Charles Berling, Vincent Perez, Louis Bertignac, Arno Klarsfeld, Laurent Fabius, Eric slow-hand Clapton, Michael Jagger, Donald Trump, Kevin Costner, Jean-Paul Enthoven and of course his son, Raphaël Enthoven, by whom she had little Aurélien).

Meanwhile the above-mentioned Rahaël Enthoven has remarked, through his lawyer, that the president’s flaunting of his (Enthoven’s) son in front of the world’s press without seeking the permission of the boy’s father is illegal. But of course since the French president is untouchable by any French law, up go the Gallic shoulders, down go the corners of the Gallic mouth.

Another possible infraction of the law by the president: he told the press on Tuesday “you will be told about it [the wedding] once it has happened.” What about the legal requirement to publish bans? Sarkozy may be above the law, but Signora Bruni is not.