Posted on 07/15/2005 10:32:40 AM PDT by Alex Marko
PRESIDENT CHIRAC sought to regain favour with his worried nation yesterday by telling the French that they are far better off than the British and have no reason to take lessons from across the Channel. The head of state’s focus on Britain would normally have seemed out of place in his traditional Bastille Day television interview, but this year M Chirac could not avoid France’s theme of the season as he grapples with record unpopularity. London’s victory in the race for the 2012 Olympics was the final straw in what France sees as a period of British superiority in the ancestral Anglo-French duel.
After leading the silence for the London bombings at an Élysée Palace garden party, M Chirac was asked about France’s losing streak and what is seen as Britain’s triumphant prosperity under Tony Blair.
He said: “I have a lot of esteem for the British people and for Tony Blair. But I do not think the British model is one that we should envy.
“Certainly, their unemployment is lower than ours. But if you take the big elements in society — health policy, the fight against poverty, . . . spending involving the future — you notice that we are much, much better placed than the English.”
M Chirac said that France spent 5.6 per cent of its annual income on education, compared with Britain’s 4.2 per cent. Later, citing Britain unprompted, he noted that 7 per cent of French children lived in poverty compared with 17 per cent in Britain.
He also insisted that he would “not make the least concession” to Mr Blair in his campaign to reform EU farm spending and would fight his attempts to open Europe’s service market to competition. Although polls show that M Chirac, 72, is trusted by only 25 per cent of the public, he refused to rule out running for a third term in 2007.
The President’s chief goal in his 45-minute state-of-the- nation chat was to persuade a dubious French public that he has the ability to respond to an economic crisis that is fuelled by a decade of 10 per cent unemployment. But France remembers that in his first Bastille Day appearance in 1995 he promised a “great campaign to curb unemployment”.
The Socialist Opposition said that he appeared “laborious, self-contradictory and on the defensive” during his broadcast. The Greens said that the President had shown himself “completely out of touch with the discontent of the French people”.
M Chirac’s biggest needling is coming from within his own camp, in the person of Nicolas Sarkozy, the cabinet minister and leader of the President’s UMP party who is campaigning to take the Élysée Palace in 2007.
M Sarkozy, 50, is using Britain as a weapon. He said: “Who would have thought that in 30 years, Great Britain would become a leading light in the world ? They have modernised the country, fundamentally revised their values, abandoned taboos and achieved a great ambition.”
M Sarkozy infuriated M Chirac by dismissing his “policies of 50 years ago” and saying that there was no point in his Bastille Day show since he had nothing new to say. Such insubordination underlined M Chirac’s declining authority as he sought to explain his latest recipe for cutting unemployment yesterday.
France’s rejection of the European constitution was not a humiliation but an opportunity to renew the French model, he said. France would retain the “genius” of its welfare state, he said, but would in future focus on encouraging people to take jobs rather than assisting the unemployed.
The line was an attempt to reinforce a timid drive by Dominique de Villepin, his Prime Minister, to adopt a more British approach to opening the job market.
However, M Chirac faces a big obstacle in articulating the need for change. Opinion polls show that a majority of the nation craves more protection and job guarantees, as desired by the Socialist Party and the hard Left, and not the supposed social breakdown that afflicts Britain.
Chirac is such a horrible human being.
Has anyone told that to the millions of North African Muslims in France?
The French will always despise les rosbifs, and the English will always detest the frogs, and there's nothing the EU's social engineering can do about it.
he is hardly human.
When Britain finally pulls its troops put of Iraq, they're gonna make a BRIEF stopover in Paris..
You're lucky YOU'RE NOT SPEAKING GERMAN!!!
And, TWICE at that.
This France that Chirac speaks of...
...isn't this the same France that stood by idly while hundreds, if not thousands of its citizens, died in a massive heatwave a few years ago?
What an a**hole Chirac is.
I already posted this article.
The French model - allowing nearly 20% of the country to become Islamicized - is better, Jacques?
Yet I'm sure the French agree with him. Not even Jerry Lewis can save the French now...
When is the next election in France? Who do we endorse, now that they claim Chirac is the "right-wing" candidate?
Sarkozy is running vs Chirac and he is very pro-US.
We endorse Sarkozy (however its spelt)
He seems like a good man - not the Nazi that Le Pen is, yet willing to endorse conservative ideas.
What's even sadder is that Chirac is about the best the French can do. You can bet his successor will be even worse.
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