Spring primroses and daffodils are flowering in Paris, as are the traditional strikes we have learned to treasure.
UMP wags refer to this as the “Grévitude” (strike attitude) as if it were a bad thing.
Union leaders like the CGT’s Beatles-lookalike Bernard Thibault are all fired up, taking inspiration from the long general strike on the French island of Guadaloupe which was settled when the “Métropole” agreed to pay a lot of money to islanders to settle down.
Yet, there may be hope. French bank Société Générale just received an 11 billion USD gift from US taxpayers through the miracle of the AIG bailout. While attractive, it is not clear that this economic model is reproducible.
And, of course,Société Générale had to spoil it. Instead of quietly enjoying its American windfall, it decided yesterday to give its two top executives 220,000 stock options, including 70,000 for CEO Daniel Bouton who courageously managed not to resign when a rogue trader “lost” 5 billion euros at his bank.
How to convince unions there is no money when banks like SocGen and energy companies like Total seem to be rolling in it? How to convince anyone of the benefits of merit pay when financial system destroying bankers award themselves billions in bonuses for failing (admittedly, with flair)?
Someone, clearly must pay. For the Guadaloupeans the solution was the French taxpayer on the mainland. (Or perhaps, more accurately, the French borrower on the mainland). But for the rest? You? Me? Perhaps—and this is clearly a better solution—
someone else.
Sadly, sadly, no one (other than AIG) is volunteering. Not the Germans. Not the Chinese. Not even those avatars of true capitalism, the new Russian billionaires.
The once proud and idealistic Socialist Party, is sitting on the sidewalk cradling its brain under its arm, hoping for the worst.
I personally am a little disheartened. Not so much by the specter of The Second Great Depression (which is real and growing) but by this wonderful country’s paralysis in the face of grave danger. (The situation in education is close to hopeless.)
Have we, the French, learned nothing at all in the past century?