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Monday, June 09, 2003

posted by gbarto at 1:07 AM:

Editorial
by Jean Boissonnat
Tension
The social crisis sweeping France is anything but a surprise. It would have hit any government, right or left, brave enough to attack the problem of retirement. Of course the diagnosis was made twenty years ago by the first reports on the subject. For five years, all the possible solutions have been on the table. One can always prolong discussions and negotiations. They would not lead to a miraculous solution, outside extending the time one must work, increasing the rates of taxation or lowering the level of the pensions.

Now we're at the moment where we must make decisions. Most European countries did this before us because they have traditions for social dialogue that we lack. But this didn't happen, all the same, without difficulties. From Italy to Sweden, passing through Austria and Germany, there were protests, conflicts, strikes. Governments had a rough time of it. Chancellor Schroder, for example, had problems rallying his party last week in Berlin. In France, at the very heart of the Socialist Party which is comfortably set up as the opposition, some old leaders like Michel Rocard and Jacques Delors courageously warned their friends against demagogic attitudes.

...

"Make the rich pay."

As for "Make the rich pay," traditional anthem of the populist left, it's hardly the obvious solution when the markets have fallen by half in two years and a recent report of the Council for Economic Analysis (set up by [former Socialist Prime Minister] Lionel Jospin) denounces excessive corporate taxes as the biggest fiscal handicap of France.

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