France on edge of return to recession, increasing pressure on Hollande

[dipsydoodle]

Source: Guardian

François Hollande's beleaguered socialist government was under increased pressure to boost the eurozone's second largest economy after a collapse in manufacturing orders tonight left it on the cusp of another recession.

A survey of French manufacturers found that output contracted and businesses shed jobs in November in response to the fastest slowdown in new orders since April, accentuating the single currency bloc's sluggish recovery. The services sector also declined, potentially sending the country sliding back into recession after having only emerged from one in the second quarter of 2013.

Hollande is already the most unpopular French president on record and can expect to face further charges of economic incompetence after the mainstays of French output and employment failed to reverse their fortunes ahead of the Christmas break.

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The government is under fire for presiding over a moribund economy that has kept unemployment at a record high. Only 26% of French people have a positive opinion of Hollande, according to the latest BVA poll, the worst score for a French leader since it began polling 32 years ago.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/16/france-recession-manufacturing-jobs-decline-germany-growth

[KoKo]

1. So...French threw out the pompous Sarkozi...and replaced him with Hollande..

who ran to the LEFT of Sarkozi (if my memory is correct) and now the French want to throw out Hollande?

Notice how "Globally" we want to throw out and throw out until we get SOMEONE TO LISTEN TO "WE THE PEOPLE?"

Perhaps I'm doing too much hyperbole. But, it does seem "Shifting Sands" for the Global Front Runner Politicians for the "PEOPLE" and when they don't perform... to throw them out SWIFTLY.... IF they don't see them representing the Workers Hopes and Rights?

Did I over-reach?

[DFW]

3. Hollande ran to the left of Sarkozy in name only

He talked the talk and was bland as mashed potatoes, but had no idea how to govern, and figured if he sent terror squads of tax inspectors out to every mom and pop shop in France and plain clothes customs agents on every train out of France, he'd rake in so much in fees that he'd never have to touch the big guys who saw him coming a mile away, and parked their fortunes elsewhere well in advance. Well, he did rake in some money, but nowhere nearly as much as that which fled France and his confiscatory clutches (customs officers are ON COMMISSION in France!).

Sarko was on the right, but only by French standards. In the USA, he'd be blasted as being to the left of Bernie Sanders for not dismantling the already huge welfare/health care benefits that all French citizens have if they need it. But as no one could ever get more than 5% of the vote in France for even suggesting that, Sarko didn't, and he never said anything that indicated he wanted to. That didn't save his ass, but the fact that he got something like 49.7% of the vote shows that the population wasn't completely against him (and didn't completely trust Hollande, with good reason, as it turned out).

[KoKo]

5. DFW: Had a hard time understanding "THIS" of what you said:

"Sarko was on the right, but only by French standards. In the USA, he'd be blasted as being to the left of Bernie Sanders for not dismantling the already huge welfare/health care benefits that all French citizens have if they need it."

Are you saying that the French need to dismantle their "huge welfare/health care benefits that all French Citizens hav if they need it?"


I must have misread you. Maybe you were being Ironic...or doing satire? I do believe that Bernie Sanders believes in "welfare for those in poverty or near poverty and Health Care Benefits for All US Citizens.

I can't make sense of your post? It seems as if you were chastising Sarkozi for being to Left of Bernie Sanders ..the Socialist?

BTW...I thought from reading here and there that Hollande would not work out because people put false hopes on him. Sarkozi's wife and his persona seemed more to me to tip the race in Hollande's favor. Sarkozi with the "Model Wife" and some pomposity was not going over well there...at that time.

[DFW]

6. I must not have been clear

Sarko showed no intention of dismantling a system ALREADY IN PLACE that protects French citizens to a degree Bernie Sanders wouldn't bother to propose in the US Senate for the simple reason that he'd be the only one voting for them. In France, on the other hand, they are completely institutionalized. In other words, the French right is already more to the left of the American left. Hollande sold a bill of goods saying he was even more to the left, but it was all pretty slogans, and very empty ones at that.

Sarko's style did put some people off--just enough to get him voted out of office, which was unfortunate. It would have been like voting Bill Clinton out of office in favor of George W. Bush because Clinton's style didn't sit well with people who otherwise agreed with him. People need to look beyond the style and check the substance (to the extent that there is any, which often enough is NOT the case).

[KoKo]

8. Okay...now I understand what you say. "Silk Purse for Sows Ear?" Perhaps

in that choice.

I think you and i might differ on Clinton with Nafta, Welfare Reform and Media Deregulation and the demise of Glass-Steagall when he was under attack about Monica Lewinsky. And, that we now know the truth about DLC's Ambitions and Goals.

But, as I said. I think the French got suckered into Hollande... But, I always felt Sarkozy was very much a Blair/Cameron/Clinton/Obama legacy. It's just that the wife and his "persona" was what brought him down and committing French Troops to ramp up in Afghanistan and elsewhere and the Banking Crisis repercussions put the French in Revolt Mode like we had with "Occupy Movement." French saw Sarkozy as something they didn't want...and Hollande did some great speeches to the Masses. Even I was taken in by his rhetoric..for "change."

BUT...HOLLANDE seems to have been happy reviving the French Wars in complicity with USA and to have been "not quite" what the CHANGE the French thought they were getting.

That's just my American view from what I read that is maybe more Left than the USA Mainstream Media reports.

But...perhaps I was hoodwinked too...even though my reading isn't MSM?

[DFW]

9. It doesn't have to be the American MSM

I live mostly in Europe and get most of my news from the German/French/British press, and I understand both German and French. At least plenty of them have not yet been bought out by the very people it is their job to expose.

[ucrdem]

10. Not exactly.

Sarkozy is the genius who raised the retirement age to 62 in 2010:

Half a million stage fresh demonstrations around France



The French president's pension plan is becoming one of the biggest battles of his presidency, pitting him against unions which crushed a previous attempt to reform the system in 1995, but his administration is refusing to buckle under the pressure.

"We have reached the limit of the (concessions) that are possible," Francois Fillon, the prime minsiter, told members of Sarkozy's UMP party.

Rail services, flights and sea ports ran below capacity as the unions kept up their battle against Sarkozy's reform, intended to make people work longer for their pensions, including raising the minimum retirement age to 62 from 60.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/8059315/Half-a-million-stage-fresh-demonstrations-around-France.html

[DFW]

2. And I'll bet I can tell you who the 26% are, too

They're the overpaid government functionaries who get their jollies from harassing people because "we're the state (nous sommes l'état)" and you can't ever EVER fire us.

What a mess that wonderful county has become is such a short time. Mitterand started to go down that road in 1981 and beat a hasty retreat when he saw where it was going. But Hollande is a bureaucrat for life, and is less connected to people out there living in the real world than he is to medieval Chinese architecture.

[Nye Bevan]

4. I always said his 75% tax was a terrible idea (nt)

[DFW]

7. It was a symbolic gesture that bombed in two ways

It pissed off the very few people whom it affected, and brought in virtually no supplemental money to ease France's deficit. In France, people with a lot of legal money tend to spend it, and the state gets 21% VAT of everything that goes down.

[ucrdem]

11. Hollande is the real deal and if he gets the Burqa ban lifted

he's basically in for life. Okay at least a 2nd term. The Burqa ban incidentally was Sarko's idea. No offense to present company but Sarkozy is a Neocon nuyjob and his 2012 defeat after one term was decisive, particularly as Hollande was considered a poor second to DSK, who was taken out in NYC under rather suspicious circumstances. France has presidential elections every five years and Hollande has plenty of time to straighten out the mess left by the UMP, who are hot to get back in power. But I really don't see it happening. The French are fickle but not that fickle and follow politics more carefully than in the US.


"Sarkozy retire, and without benefits"