December 2, 2003
WAS THERE AN ASCENT?:
The
Decline of France: And the rise of an Islamist-leftist alliance. (Christopher Caldwell, 12/08/2003, Weekly Standard)
If the 2002 elections were a wake-up call, then France has slept through it. Today, Chirac's popularity is plummeting and Raffarin's job hangs by a thread. On the day the United States launched its war in Iraq last March, Chirac had a 74 percent approval rating, while Raffarin's stood at 58. Today, Chirac is at 47 and falling, while Raffarin is at 33. Their problem is partly that they knuckled under to union protests last spring during a halting and overdue attempt to restrain public employees' privileges. It is partly that they mishandled last summer's heat wave, which saw 15,000 more deaths than would be expected according to actuarial tables. (Most were old people, ditched by their families over summer vacations prolonged absurdly by generous social legislation. The great indignity of the heat wave was thus that it reminded the French what a non-familial, consumerist, rootless, "American" society they have become.) It is partly that Chirac and Raffarin have squandered their mandate on nugatory issues, from their campaign against reckless driving to a "war on tobacco." (The latter is causing problems of public order, too, as smokers, incredulous at the near-doubled price of cigarettes, assault tobacconists and steal merchandise.) [...]WHEN FRANCE'S OWN PROBLEMS are mentioned in public, the reaction is electric. The hot book in France just now is "La France qui tombe" ("France Falling") by the lawyer and political scientist Nicolas Baverez (which was first published as an essay in the prestigious quarterly Commentaire last spring). Baverez--who opposed the American invasion of Iraq in a clear-eyed way--blames France's current predicament on the country's preference for stabilizing its institutions over adjusting to the world as it is. This is not a momentary loss of will but a tendency that has been entrenched in French culture since the Industrial Revolution, and it leaves France in "undeniable decline, even in the context of a Europe that is itself decadent."
Wasn't France in decline by the start of the Industrial Revolution? Posted by orrinj at December 2, 2003 7:55 AM
"The great indignity of the heat wave was thus that it reminded the French what a non-familial, consumerist, rootless, "American" society they have become.)"
They really don't get it, do they?
Posted by: Peter B at December 2, 2003 8:59 AMI would have used simply "negligent" myself, but maybe Caldwell gets paid per word?
Posted by: Barry Meislin at December 2, 2003 9:28 AMThe French have been in decline since Joan was burned.
Posted by: jim hamlen at December 2, 2003 9:47 AMFrance's problem is that it never completed its revolution, nor its counterrevolution. It's been hamstrung for two centuries.
But the contempt we all feel for French statists and precious intellectuals should not obscure some pretty big successes.
At the same time you couldn't get a telephone installed in your apartment, France also was developing one of the first and biggest tech parks in the world, in the Camargue, of all places.
Weird country.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at December 2, 2003 4:36 PMHarry:
Not being able to complete either its revolution or counterevolution may be its sole saving grace rather than its problem.
Posted by: Peter B at December 2, 2003 9:21 PM