Cutting across the Channel

While it may be a little dangerous to speak so soon, a remarkable gulf is growing between the responses of the British and the French public to their governments’ attempts to balance the books.

While it may be a little dangerous to speak so soon, a remarkable gulf is growing between the responses of the British and the French public to their governments’ attempts to balance the books. In Britain, there has been a calm reaction to the cuts so far announced, with a clear majority supporting the government’s bungled announcement that it is to restrict child benefit payments. In France, the only austerity measure to speak of is raising the minimum retirement age from 60 to 62 — and it has brought protesters to the streets. Three million are on strike, with two thirds of the public supporting them. It is that common French scene: bedlam.

Nicolas Sarkozy was, of course, always expected to confront the trade unions over economic reform. He was billed as a would-be French Thatcher, a free marketeer determined to reverse generations of dead-end protectionism. In the end he has seen all the protests, but none of the reform. The state continues to account for over half the French economy — as it does, now, in Britain.

But while we seek to reverse this, Sarkozy is compounding the problem by setting up a fund to increase government-owned stakes in large companies. His resolve, of which we heard so much on his election in 2007, seems to be evaporating.

Even Sarkozy’s controversial pension reforms are no more than a token gesture in cutting government spending. He has ruled out tax rises, saying, rightly, that his country already imposes the highest levies in the world. So there must be cuts.