“There are three kinds of lies,” according to that arch-politician Benjamin Disraeli: “lies, damned lies and statistics,” and an election campaign is the ideal time to see the last kind being hurled about as if they were the new gospel. Jacques Marseille, an economist who has made a career and reputation cutting two round holes in the wool which statistic-wielding politicians often pull over our eyes, recently published an excellent book called: “Les Bons chiffres pour ne pas voter nul en 2007” (There’s a play on words too elegant to translate, so let’s simply say The real figures to help you vote intelligently in 2007).

The format is good: each double page takes one subject, often something we assume we know all about, which Marseille then proceeds to reinterpret, for example the unemployment situation of the under-25’s, or which party builds the most council homes, or he shows how much each of us would receive if the bosses million-euro bonuses and golden parachutes were re-distributed amongst everybody. Not all of it is bad news for his compatriots – equally part of his Don’t-take –what-politicians-tell-you-for-granted message is that you are not suffering as much as you think you are..

Let’s start with a prime case of a politician hoistr by statistics, the prime minister, Dominique de Villepin. Why do we hear so little about him today? Why is he not running for president? Mainly because a year ago he totally mishandled a new law to help the under-25’s get a first job – particularly the young from the dispossessed housing estates. At that time it was generally bandied about that 21.8% of French youth were unemployed: “It’s not in fact 21.8% of the young aged 15-24 years who are on the dole, but 21.8% of the young between 15-24 years who are no longer following at school or university and who are actively looking for a job,” writes Marseille. “And the difference is enormous: in 2004 there were 7,800,000 young people aged between 15 and 24. Of that number 4 695 899 (59.9%) were at school or university [entry to university is not selective in France, but open to anyone who has passed the baccalauréat] 2,089,404 (26.7%) had a job, with more than half employed on a lifetime contract, 439,406 (5.6%) were inactive, that is neither being educated nor registered at the unemployment office (young mothers at home, for example). 609,000 (7.8%) were unemployed. Less than the European average (8.2%) – the UK is at 7.6%.

Which just goes to show how much misuse or abuse of statistics wrongly causes despair amongst the young……and leads governments to absurd policies whose only effect is to tip the population out on to the street. Misuse of statistics kills…..” Indeed they killed M. De Villepin’s dreams of glory. For a while, at least.

Or more briefly, Marseille shows that in a country still largely dominated by unions (they are discreetly called les partenaires sociaux – the social partners), there are nearly a million fewer paid up union members, 1,884,000, than bosses, 2,788,000. “If the bosses decided to take to the street to defend their rights would easily outnumber the people who are supposed to represent the world of work.”

We all know that the French bête noire is the United States, in particular its jungle work-ethic. Perhaps to provoke his compatriots, Marseille fits the American work model, scaled down to match the different population, over the top of the existing French model, to see whether, if France was run along American lines, its employment situation would be very different. The result is astonishing. “France would have 5.3 million jobs more, whereas at the moment there are a bit more than 2 million people seeking a job.” In areas such as transport, post and telecommunications the number of people employed is, within the ratio, about the same. In schools and public health the American model would add half a million jobs. Where it differs wildly is in shops, hotels and restaurants. This seems strange because tourism is one of France’s major industries. Yet if France employed the same ratio of people in hotels and restaurants as the Americans, the number of people employed would rise from 770,000 to 1,790,000 – over a million more jobs would be created in that area alone. In shops too there is the same problem: “For a comparable volume of sales, Toys’R’Us employs between 30 and 40% less personnel in its French shops than in its American ones.” The number of people employed in shops has practically not increased since 1973, and has actually gone done since 1982, whereas the same sector in the United States has created 8 million jobs in the US. The reason, according to Marseille, is that the “hourly cost of an employee on the minimum wage is about 60% higher in France than in the States, less because of the wage itself than the charges which the employer has to pay..” But this is precisely the sort of comparison which no politician, let alone presidential candidate, dares say. And it begs another thorny question tackled in the same book by M. Marseille: why does a country with the highest employer charges (to pay for social security) also have the highest level of social security debt? Ask that question of a candidate and you are guaranteed a lot of red-faced waffle.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 1st, 2007 at 3:33 pm and is filed under General France. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.