A Paradoxical French Electorate

A Paradoxical French Electorate
Voters in Presidential Race Demand, and Fear, Change

PARIS (By John Ward Anderson and Molly Moore, Washington Post) April 22, 2007 — Guillaume Beaucheron did not become a train engineer because he loved toy trains as a boy. He did it for the good pay, short work hours and early retirement offered by France's state-owned railway company. And now, he says, that is all under threat.

"In the past 20 or 30 years, the government has failed at everything," Beaucheron complained. It has buckled under to European Union rules that jeopardize and delay his retirement, while the Internet and automation have eliminated railway jobs by the day.

And so when he goes to vote in Sunday's French presidential election, said Beaucheron, 36, he'll back a candidate who will fight globalization, protect jobs from encroaching technology and defend his retirement plan, which allows him to quit working at age 56. He declined to specify his candidate choice, citing his powerful labor union's neutral position in the campaign.

"We need change," Beaucheron said, his thinning brown hair tied in a skinny ponytail. "We need to get the country moving — more jobs, pay raises for everyone."

Beaucheron's demand for change on the one hand, and his absolute fear of it on the other, reflect the country's core ambivalence going into Sunday's election. The three front-running candidates embody this paradox, too. While each campaigns as an agent of change, few people here believe that whoever wins a five-year term in the Elysee Palace will tackle the country's serious ills.

Beset by a stagnant economy, enormous public debt and high unemployment, millions of French citizens fear the demise of the vastly expensive social welfare system that has given them 35-hour workweeks, month-long summer vacations, free health care and liberal retirement benefits.

"We like talking about the French Revolution and the abolition of privileges, but privileges have just changed hands," said Laurent Jouve, a 45-year-old goat farmer from the southeastern French village of Chateauneuf-de-Bordette. "Nowadays, everyone is attached to their small privilege, their 35 hours, their benefits. That is why reforms are hard to implement in France. Everyone wants change, but only if it affects their neighbor."

The common view here that France is in decline belies continuing clout abroad. The country remains a key U.S. trading partner and diplomatic ally. A nuclear power and NATO ally with a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, France has been a major partner in the U.S. drive to curtail Iran's nuclear ambitions and rebuild Afghanistan. With its deep ties to former colonies in the Middle East, it plays a key role in peacekeeping efforts, notably in Lebanon.

"France is not the great power it used to be," said Philip Gordon, a European specialist at the Brookings Institution. But with its leadership on Iran, its troops in Afghanistan, its peacekeeping forces in Lebanon, and its U.N. and NATO roles, "we discovered over the past couple of years how much we need France and our other European allies for international legitimacy and support."

But at home, questions about jobs and the social welfare system dominate the race. "This French strategy doesn't work anymore — we have immobility and we don't want to change, we don't want to adapt to globalization, we don't want to decrease public expenditures and reduce taxes," said economist Marc Touati. The candidates have largely declined to debate real solutions, he said, and have pandered to the belief that "we're French, and we're the exception."

Increasing numbers of French young people and members of the business elite in recent years have voted with their feet, moving abroad in search of job opportunities, tax havens and a climate that rewards risk-taking entrepreneurs and does not limit workers to 35 hours a week.

France has had only two presidents in 26 years, and the desire for new, younger leadership stems partly from anger at outgoing president Jacques Chirac, 74, who served for 12 years and never delivered on promises of reform. Instead, his term coincided with a growing sense of malaise so pronounced that analysts gave it a name: "declinism."

Of the 12 candidates on Sunday's first-round ballot, three are considered top contenders: tough-talking former interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy, 52, from Chirac's ruling party, the Union for a Popular Movement; Socialist Ségolène Royal, 53, who is hoping to become France's first female president; and François Bayrou, 55, of the small Union for French Democracy party, who has positioned himself as a centrist between Sarkozy on the right and Royal on the left.

Because of the crowded field, it is unlikely that any candidate will win outright with a 50 percent-plus majority. The top two vote-getters will face off in a second ballot May 6.

The three leading candidates have tried to capitalize on the calls for change. Sarkozy promised a "rupture" with the past. Royal argued that, since France has never had a female president, she would be the best agent for change. Bayrou vowed to end the left-right divide that has been a hallmark of French politics for five decades by creating a coalition government representing all major parties.

Any one of them would be the first French president born after World War II — assuring, if nothing else, at least a more modern image. But despite marketing themselves as political outsiders, all are decades-long members of the French political elite, and there is widespread skepticism that any would make a radical break with the past.

Goat farmer Jouve, who has a boyish grin and bushy eyebrows, is one of countless people who say they are big advocates of change.

"If we want real change in France, we need to produce more, because with more production, people spend more and we can therefore create more jobs," said Jouve, who sells milk from his 150 goats to a local farm cooperative that makes the famous regional picodon cheeses. "It seems simple, but our main problem is the cost for employers to hire people. Employers' taxes are so high that we are stuck."

Jouve has strict parameters on what kinds of changes he is willing to accept. Because of cheap foreign competition, a good change would be higher protective tariffs on imported cheeses, he said. He's willing to give up France's lucrative farm subsidies, but only "if prices are high enough to sustain local producers without subsidies."

He fears that without greater protections for farmers, France will lose its agricultural heritage and end up being little more than a tourist destination. "I picture myself as part of this touristy trend," he said, "taking my goats out for walks for tourists to enjoy taking pictures of the French folklore."

Jouve paused. He conceded that, like many French, he had contradictory demands and said he's so frustrated with all the candidates that he may cast a blank ballot on Sunday.

Many political and economic analysts, politicians and French citizens see the country as seriously broken, built on socialist ideals that are outdated and flawed. The country now vies for the "sick man of Europe" moniker, with near-record budget and trade deficits, its highest debt in history (65 percent of GDP), and anemic economic growth and employment rates that are among the lowest in the industrialized world.

Public spending accounts for about 55 percent of the national income; unemployment has not fallen below 8 percent in 25 years.

The cost of hiring and firing employees in France is so high that many companies are unwilling to face the risks of expanding. Studies show that as many as 70 percent of all new employment contracts in France are for temporary jobs.

The candidates propose different ways of stimulating job growth. Sarkozy, who is considered the biggest free-market champion in the field, would exempt overtime pay from taxes and social security charges, and he recommends a basket of tax cuts, although he is an avowed protectionist.

Bayrou proposes allowing companies to hire two new, tax-exempt employees. Royal wants the government to help create 500,000 new jobs for youths by guaranteeing them a year's minimum wage, and she proposes raising the minimum wage from $1,625 to $1,950 a month.

None of the candidates has said how their proposals would be funded. But many voters, too, refuse to accept that increasing economic growth and employment in France requires giving up job security and costly benefits. Voters "want the myth of a job that's secure for life with full, massive protections, and by some miracle the creation of new jobs," said Nicole Bacharan, a political analyst at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris.

Loic Lephuez, 22, a political science student at the Sorbonne university in Paris, said he believes France needs "deep change" to increase the number of jobs, but he does not want "radical change" that would undermine the welfare system.

He does not want higher taxes, he can accept lengthening the 35-hour workweek, and he wants a reasonable compromise between retrogressive nationalism and unfettered globalization. Asked where the government should cut back, his only suggestion was military expenditures. Government should be more efficient, he said.

"I don't think it is predetermined that if you want to create more jobs, there needs to be less of a social security net — they're not related," said Lephuez, who said he supports Royal. "I admit it will be hard to reform France, but if the changes go toward social improvement, people will accept that."

"People in my generation — the 18- to 25-year-olds — are more committed to changing things. We want to do something, not just be scared," he said. "If you don't have hopes at 22, there's no point in keeping going."