May 19, 2003
PARIS - Europe's three deepest mysteries: a. how do Italians stay so slim when tempted by irresistibly delicious pastas?; b. how do Spaniards manage to go to dinner at midnight, hit the discos afterwards, then go to work next morning?; c. how do French manage to apparently work so little, yet maintain the world's most enjoyable and luxurious lifestyle?
No one knows, but this week's massive strikes and demonstrations across France, as well as in Sweden and Austria (Italy is next), showed there is big trouble in Euro-paradise. Last week, Paris and all other French cities were thrown into paralysis and chaos. France's powerful, truculent public service unions (an oxymoron if there ever was one) shut down trains, subways, air travel, telecommunications, and most government services. Teachers, always among the leftmost of unions, walked out; so, too, truckers and mailmen. Over a million workers staged huge street demonstrations across France. Spring in Paris used to be known as the time for romance. Now, it has become the time for strikes.
The national strike that has brought France to a standstill is a warning by unions to the conservative government of President Jacques Chirac and Prince's me Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin not to go ahead with plans to overhaul the state pension system.
Many French in both the public and private sectors are retiring at 58-60 — at three-quarters or more of their regular working incomes. France's lavish pension system was created when only a minority of people lived beyond sixty. Today, thanks to the nation's excellent, but underfunded medical system, `bon vivant' French live well into their 80's, considerably exceeding in longevity diet and exercise-obsessed North Americans.
`Old Europe' is getting very old. The state pension system cannot support so many elderly people and will, says PM Raffarin, soon go bust unless reformed. This means raising retirement age in stages, initially to around 62, and eventually to 65 or even 70, and pushing people to start using private pension funds to augment the state plan.
Such reforms are sensible and inevitable. But spoiled French unions refuse to face reality. The idea of the patron state as fount of endless goodies and largesse — a sort of super-papa — is as much part of French culture as the baguette or smoking while you eat. Over half of France's economic output goes through government hands, making it the nation's largest employer and arbiter of wages and benefits.
No wonder France's national sport is street demonstrations. A sport, art form, and political ritual, France's `manifestations' are usually good-natured affairs, but can turn ugly. Back in the late 1950's and 60's, bloody pitched battles were fought in Paris between leftist demonstrators and head-smashing riot police notorious for brutality. In 1995, massive demonstrations against proposed pension reforms brought down the government.
Frenchmen have known since their Revolution that politicians respond to two major stimuli: fear and greed. Huge street demonstrations, like this week's, terrify bureaucrats and the politicians at their gold-encrusted Louis XV desks, and usually get results. French like this system and find it far more effective than the North American practice of buying politicians. To a nation that created history's greatest revolution, threatening to burn down city hall and string up politicians feels more democratic and more emotionally satisfying — and means another day off work.
However, the principal proponents of mass demonstrations are public sector unions who claim to serve the people but are really focused on featherbedding their nests. Restrictive labor laws imposed by previous socialist governments and their union allies play a major role in the nation's chronically high unemployment rate. Foreign investors steer clear of famously difficult, business-unfriendly France.
As everywhere else, French love the free lunch - goodies and benefits paid by someone else. They revel in state-sponsored laziness, such as two long weekends this month plus another day off for rioting, and half a day to recover. Plus six weeks of annual paid vacation; a galaxy of special interest subsidies; almost free medicine and education (among the world's best); and, most recently, the preposterous 35-hour work week. One truly wonders how France remains such a wealthy nation? Even journalists, a low and tawdry bunch, get special lunch coupons from papa government.
Most Frenchmen take their two hour daily lunch — with wine, of course. They drive snappy cars and dress, at least in Paris, expensively. They quit their offices by five in order to call on their mistresses before returning home to an excellent dinner prepared by their forgiving wives. In spite of chain-smoking and eating fat, Frenchmen's heart attack rate is 40% lower than Americans. The media-driven national hysterias and paranoias that afflict North America — Osama bin Laden, flabby thighs, incontinence, SARS, mad snipers, etc — are happily uncommon here.
France has problems, of course: high taxes and unemployment, rising crime, deafening noise, and a shocking decline in its formerly exquisite cuisine. French are notorious grumblers, but, in the main, they are happier than most other nations. In fact, an astounding 72% of French spend their long vacations in their own beautiful country. France's good times keep on rolling.
Foreign Correspondent