Comments on: A little more clarity, please

by: Tim

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:47:34 +0000

It was the students’ unions and the National Council for Higher Education and Research which blocked the reform proposing to select which graduates go forward to take a masters. The idea of selecting which school-leavers go to which university was not even raised. You are right that there is something clearly wrong: the idea of selection being un-republican is a blind-spot which means while there is the alternative of grandes ecoles, universities will never improve. My personal fear is that way of thinking may, in different forms, also make reforms of labour etc also impossible, and that is the real problem for France. How to reform while remaining quintessentially French.

by: Emlyn

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:37:39 +0000

What could be done to resolve the very real and fundamental problem of the universities? As I see it, they need funding by private industry and selection. Without selection, they won’t get the funding and the teachers’ unions are resolutely opposed to selection (while sending their children whenever possible into “classes préparatoires”) on a matter of principle (equality) and are opposed to private funding thus disadvantaging students from poor familes whereas teachers themselves are comfortably middle class.

by: ange scalpel

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 09:35:25 +0000

If I am an idealist, then Mr Sarkozy is one. For he has promised to move quickly to reforms and behaves as if he expected quick results, and he actually did start some reforms, there is no doubt about this, although my claim is that many of these are either inefficient or pure facade ( as the one on universities, which solves nothing). Of course the famous “100 days” limit is not enough to judge, but if we do not start looking at what he does, what will be the limit ? One year ? Two ?

by: John Harris

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 14:27:43 +0000

I’m flattered Mr Colm thought my remarks about Sarkozy smart! I must show the wife! There is no doubt that Royal did benefit enormously by being a glamorous woman. Whether another Socialist candidate could have done better in the long run is a matter for conjecture. Like it or not, we’ve got Sarkozy for five years and I hope very much that he will set France on the path to at least partial recovery - and there are many factors at play, not least public opinion, of which he is only a part. I take Mr Colm’s point about the tax reform but, please, a little patience! Mitterrand, as you will remember, pushed through a great parcel of reforms in his first year (1981-2) in office after which he suddenly, by force of circumstance, became right-wing.

by: Colm

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 13:41:00 +0000

Just to clarify when i mentioned Charles Bremner’s blog i meant the posts from the readers in relation to Mme Royal and not the blogs themselves.

by: Colm

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 13:20:22 +0000

Just responding to Mr Harris on a couple of points. Firstly the remark about “le petit nicolas” was meant as a reference to the little school boy from the books that my wife reads to our son and not in relation to Mr Sarkozy’s height. Apologies if i wasnt clear. As for the remark about Mme Royal’s pretty face i think it is a bit rich to give about about smart comments about Sarkozy when it was Royal who was subjected to the kind of comments one normally reads in tabloids about popstars. The fascination and details in the press and blogs about her broken jaw, hairdos and outfits during the course of the campaign was plain old sexism. Read some of the posts on Charles Bremners’ Times blogs over the past few months for lots of examples.
Regarding the reform arguements going on,i have to find myself in agreement with Mr Scalpel. It is not the pace of the reforms which as Mr Harris says are happening at a quiet time of the political calendar its the reforms themselves. Already we are seeing some repositioning from Sarkozy on issues which he addressed during the election campaign. The shift on the golden parachutes to top executives is one. His first “reforms” of the tax system have done little by way helping your average Frenchman. The centerpiece of the new law sets a cap on each household’s overall tax bill at 50 percent of income. This includes income taxes, property taxes, local taxes, the wealth tax and two taxes that were levied to shore up the social security systems. (This cap already existed, but it had been set at 60 percent.)
This might sound reasonable, but according to the French government’s own estimates, very few people will benefit. In a total population of 62 million, there are only 234,397 households whose tax bill exceeds 50 percent of income. And 201,864 of these households will receive an average tax break of only 649 euros (or less than $900 at the current exchange rate of $1.37 to one euro). As with the Bush Administration’s tax cuts, the big winners in France will be at the very top. According to the Finance Ministry’s estimates, the 1,081 households whose net worth is over 15.5 million euros will each get the equivalent of more than $344,000. So Sarkozy’s “modernization” looks pretty good from the top, especially since the new government sweetened the deal with the completely superfluous near-abolition of the estate tax. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070827/stancil
So then we turn to his reform of the markets to make French companies more competitive and better placed to compete in a global market. Yet he then turns around to the sumit of E.U. leaders and demands the removal of any mention of “free and undistorted” competition. So surely we are entitled to ask what does he stand for and is he the man to lead France down the road of reform.If his only worry is his wife then I for one have my doubts but hey i am looking forward to the debate.

by: John Harris

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 11:50:58 +0000

Mr Scalpel makes some forceful, heavily one-sided points. He would seem to be something of an idealist: reforms won’t take effect in a day and an abyssal debt won’t be absorbed not even in five years. Traditionally, July and August are dead months as far as government and much else are concerned in France. This year, at least, they worked during July. As to university reforms, so many ministers have broken their teeth on this one - it is ironical that student unions have no representatives taken from future students, only from those who have already profited (or not) from the system - that it is essential to tread carefully. I think a few steps have been taken in the right direction. This idea of an obsession with greed for power, a monstrous ego, a tightening grip on all State institutions: we heard this over and over again during the Presidential campaign from - no Brownie points for guessing - the Socialist Royal, who is, according to many ex-collaborators, a much more tyrannical and sectarian person than Sarkozy. It is amazing what a pretty face can do for one!

by: marie-france

Sun, 19 Aug 2007 13:30:54 +0000

Please read again what Tim King wrote in “Universités and Grandes Ecoles” .If you had had to live through the French system of selecting the best civil servants you would have understood that my calling Sarkozy a failure was meant ironically, largely. I have been unable to discover if Sarkozy ever was in “classe préparatoire” for a few weeks or even months. If he was it must have been out of curiosity. Then it is impossible to say that he failed ENA, entry to which can only be achieved after years of heart and soul numbing.

by: John Harris

Sat, 18 Aug 2007 11:41:20 +0000

Actually, I think it is possible to pick up Tim King on a few points where he is being less than objective. “There is a pall of boredom” is supposition even if it is often true that very active people dislike holidays. Meeting journalists “seems to be a relief” for him - supposition again. “Had it been Kennedy” he would have offered the photographers drinks. Again, supposition: Kennedy has become sanctified tohugh in everyday life he was far from being a saint.
I may add a further retort to Mr Colm-Ireland. In his eyes it is not acceptable for those who do not share his political views to express theirs. Also, I dislike the discrimination implicit in references to Sarkozy’s height. That is silly.

by: John Harris

Sat, 18 Aug 2007 11:21:00 +0000

If Mr Colm-Ireland had looked more closely, he would have seen I wrote “you who, if NOT sad”…. Otherwise, I cannot reply because he provides no “sound argument”, just another “inane comment”. That said, I cannot see proper justification in Tim King’s writing to show that Sarkozy is an incomplete man. Based merely on one incident, that would seem to presume too much.
Regarding Marie-France’s remark about his being a failure because he didn’t get into ENA, I have a friend who tried three times to get into one of the Grandes Ecoles: he then went on to get a scholarship to study in Florence, another to spend a year at the LSE and now lectures internationally on economics and has had three books published - and he is not yet forty. Not bad for “something of a failure”.