Stardate 20030418.1712

(On Screen): This article written by an expatriate Frenchman paints an even more dire picture of the situation in France right now than any other I've seen. There was a now-famous article last autumn which described the serious challenge France faces due to its unassimilated and increasingly radical Muslim minority, but this and other reports now makes clear the true depth of the problem.

In my never-ending quest to try to understand the reason for Chirac's increasingly bizarre behavior internationally, it caused me to think of an entirely new possibilities. This is a subject I've visited before, several times.

I've variously entertained the idea that what has motivated the French behavior was resentment about their diminished place in the world, a sinister attempt to create and lead a world anti-American coalition (especially including much of the Arab world), actual delusions that they were more important than they really are, straightforward pandering to the crowd that got out of hand, a sustained case of miscommunication with America based on deep and unrecognized differences in cultural assumptions, outright fear of American power and American motives, attempts to cover up years of illegal deals between French companies and Iraq in violation of UN sanctions, outright corruption of the French government due to direct bribery by Iraq, Iraqi blackmail of key French political figures, fear of an armed insurrection by France's large and increasingly hostile Muslim minority, fear of the economic damage to France if it loses access to the Iraqi market and loses its privileged place in the UN "oil-for-food" program, personal ambition by Chirac to "leave a political legacy" (and he will, but not the one he wanted to), personal fear by Chirac that once he leaves office he'll cease to be immune to criminal indictment in a major bribery scandal.

To some extent probably many of these are factors, but none of them has ever really seemed adequate. The prizes in each case don't seem to match the price being paid.

But it seemed to me that there may be at least two other factors involved: desperation and resignation. In both of these, it's not really current events which motivates them as much as the fact that the long term outlook for France is truly dismal.

Guy Milliere describes it this way:

Economically speaking, France is decaying, full speed. Unemployment is officially around ten per cent. If you add the people who have never worked and so are not counted for the statistics, and also add the students who study nothing useful, the right number would be way above fifteen per cent. Growth rate is now officially around one per cent, and it includes government activities: if the government component was not included, it would be easy to see that France is in depression. Her population is growing old, and no money is available to take care of the large number of senior citizens in the years to come. The greater part of young people are Muslim, not integrated with French society, and almost illiterate. ...

There were Muslims in France thirty years ago, but they were not like the Muslims of today. They were moderate, they did not feel they could wield decisive political power in France, they did not think they were at war against western civilization. Now it’s clear that they think they are at war. ...

Within twenty years, Muslims will be a majority in France. And if nothing changes, they will be radical Muslims.

The French government takes care of the present: it knows it cannot take care of the future because there is no future. The French government acts like a traitor to its old allies for many reasons: because it has no principles, because it needs money, but especially because it is afraid of bloody riots. France is not a sovereign nation anymore: it’s partly ruled by the mob, partly ruled from the outside by corrupting Muslim tyrants.

The French welfare state is famously in extremely deep trouble. With a quarter of the workforce being government employees, and with broad and generous benefits payments being given to retirees and the large and increasing unemployed population, the tax burden is immense. Because of the overwhelming political power of certain trade unions, there is a huge regulatory burden on businesses in France. (The regulatory burden is also a result of a huge bureaucracy who see their job as being to regulate.)

So, for instance, it's nearly impossible under French labor law to lay employees off during an economic downturn. The theory behind this was that it would lead to a larger workforce. The reality is that it forces businessmen to tune their hiring for the worst economic conditions they might face instead of the best ones, and thus they don't aggressively hire during booms for fear of being stuck with excess employees during a bust.

The French economy is nearly stagnant. Most of the job creation during