Revolution Revisited?: Reflections on the Student Protests in
France
“No government has ever been
beneficent,” Woodrow Wilson once asserted, “when the attitude of the
government was that it was taking care of the people. The only freedom consists
in the people taking care of the government.”
The French love to be contrary. I'm
not talking out of school. I'm telling you what they proudly say about
themselves. They are also stubborn and possess a remarkable ability to cling
tenaciously to concepts, opinions, and strategies that most of them openly admit
no longer serve them. Their recalcitrance has dug them quite a deep hole. There
is now so much
wrong with the French political, social, and
economic systems that finding a coherent place to begin discussion becomes a
monumental brainteaser. French students, however, have honed in on one:
Dominique de Villepin’s "First Employment Contract," or
Contrat premier
embauche (CPE), slated to go into effect in
April. Will these latest rumblings of discontent in France ultimately erupt into
what that nation needs, something wholly new?
In a March 21st editorial entitled "The Decline of
France," the Wall Street
Journal (WSJ) suggests that public debate in
France no longer occurs through "the ballot box or institutions of a purportedly
mature democracy." Certainly, the French formula of protest/capitulation has
become so engrained as to be knee-jerk. But why and how has this occurred?
Alexis de Tocqueville once wrote that "the American Republic will endure until
the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s
money.” How ironic that his assertion would one day describe so precisely the troubles in his own
nation.
The French long for a guardian to
protect and care for them. Paradoxically, they don’t want anyone telling
them what to do. This scenario may sound familiar to parents of teen-aged
children—the metaphorical stage of development at which France seems
arrested. Pre-Revolutionary royal rhetoric encouraged a view of the king as
father to his people. Wholly dissatisfied with that father figure, the French
overthrew Louis XVI in 1789. Yet, having rid themselves of their nasty,
tyrannical parents, the rebellious kids never availed themselves of full freedom
and maturity by moving out of Mom and Dad's basement. Napoleon quickly filled
the parental void and after that, for most of the nineteenth century, France
oscillated tempestuously between unstable republics and various forms of
monarchy. During much of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, it has
tried to meld the two forms of governance, allowing itself to be ruled by a
series of presidents parading as kings—kings who have nevertheless taken a
cue from history in order to keep their metaphorical heads from rolling in a
crunch. The principle ingredient of the formula? Increase both bureaucracy and
dependence upon it in order to pull the fangs from any possible protest.
Meanwhile, at high levels of French government--where privilege is paramount,
corruption rife, and immunity to prosecution guaranteed--champagne flows from a
golden fountain.
The French penchant for
advantages and protections has indeed become a powerful means for government to
proliferate and entrench itself. While the number of state functionaries in
France remains difficult to establish precisely due to varying definitions of the
term, the most commonly cited statistic puts the figure at approximately one
fifth of the French workforce. This estimate is likely quite conservative. The
crushing weight of paying the salaries and extensive benefits of so many workers
has contributed to tax upon tax, withering net incomes andf
buying power. As the public sector grows larger, its appetite has
unsurprisingly increased. Politicians content with this
arrangement—because it guarantees them re-election by the public
sector’s now powerful ranks—insist that this spiraling trend is the price of services and benefits. However, the gross inefficiency and cost of this
heavy bureaucratic machine has mostly made an oxymoron of the phrase
“French government services.” The French regularly complain that
they have lost patience with poor service, frequent strikes, and the hoards of
corrupt, self-interested politicians who do nothing to improve matters. They
acknowledge the need for change. But when the moment arrives, they lose
courage quickly. Change remains attractive only as long as it doesn’t
entail any fear of the unknown, growing pains, or inconvenience. So much for serious movement. Energies instead pour into patching the totally decrepit but familiar system.
Another indicator of this
complete lack of resolve turns up in the dreams and ambitions of the French for
their children. Despite bubbling frustration with the public sector, most
parents still fervently hope that their child will get top grades, attend a
good university, and work for the state, thereby joining the ranks of the very
people that so aggravate them. Why? Because such jobs promise the best benefits
in France and...lifetime guarantees. Getting rid of a private
sector employee in France may be painful but it pales in comparison to the challenge of firing a member
of the public machine. As a low-level worker, one may not earn a fortune working
for the state, but the other assurances and advantages still make a highly
bureaucratic system desirable to a people without the stomach for uncertainty.
The March 21st Investor’s
Business Daily column “The French
Paradox” has it right: French politicians have “encouraged the
redefinition of ‘rights’ as something government grants, not as
pre-political freedoms citizens charge government to protect.” The
monarchy, royal bureaucracy, and patronage are all alive and well under the
guise of French democracy.
All the recent
student unrest in France over the CPE legislation has prompted a number of
American columnists to pontificate on the need for complete overhaul in that
nation. Who can blame them, really? France has long condescended about our
system, holding “Americanization” to be as foul an expression as
putain. In
that context, Jonah Goldberg’s syndicated column of March 15th
pokes fun at the student reactions. He and many of his colleagues are
right. In order to correct an overall unemployment rate of more than 9%, something’s got to give in a big hurry. With unemployment
at an even worse 22-23% among those under 26 years of age, the government made
what seemed to Goldberg and other outsiders like a good faith effort to
prioritize the problems of the worst afflicted. What American critics
don’t yet seem to realize, however, is that neither the CPE, the CNE
(contrat nouvel
embauche, a similar measure affecting
individuals over the age of 26), nor any step expected to follow applies to the
overly fat public sector. In the face of economic disaster, the French
bureaucratic state remains committed to maintaining itself while busily
expecting others to face risks and make all the sacrifices. While far from
stupid, the French—in very human fashion—are not interested in
giving up security if a means exists to avoid doing so. Seeing that the state
does not feel compelled to give up its own protections suggests to a good
portion of the population that the situation is not terribly critical and that
they are again being asked to sacrifice sheerly to accommodate bloated
government—not because it is a life or death situation for the French
economy. The government has no credibility when it comes to
change.
France’s housing shortage
reveals another troubling aspect of de Villepin’s approach to
unemployment. French landlords, for instance, generally insist on two- to
three-year leases in conjunction with adequate proof of employment. For many in
the current economic environment, these demands already present a major
challenge but landlords and banks remain unlikely to change their procedures in
light of diminished guarantees of payment. Once a landlord, real estate agent,
or loan officer sees the initials CPE or CNE on proof-of-employment
documentation, finding an apartment or getting a home loan is likely to get even
harder. If the government seriously wishes to encourage independence and
competition in the job market while keeping faith with the people, it will
simultaneously have to create a bit of breathing room by addressing reasonable
reforms to both rental and loan policy. Are protesting students focusing any
of their abundant energies on this possibility as a trade-off for what everyone
else can see is the necessity of losing job guarantees? Or do they truly believe
that continuing to press for protections will eliminate the need for such
concerns?
When the state works for the
people, the people can tell the state what it must do via the ballot box as the
WSJ
suggested. But when the government takes care of you, ultimately, it calls the
shots. The ballot box threatens only those politicians who don’t throw in
their lot with the rest of the powerful public sector—an exceedingly rare
occurrence in France. The country of the philosophes thus finds itself in an
impossible bind. In a democracy, the people must effect necessary and desirable
change, but the French habitually expect their government to provide comfortable
salvation. Unfortunately, as de Tocqueville so eloquently predicted, government
has sycophantic tendencies and in the end will use public “need”
only to further its own interests. Even with France tottering on the brink of
disaster, the state has little incentive to change anything. If neither the
people nor the government adopt any serious interest in change, the system will
remain exactly as it is until it crumbles into the ground. All the noisy protest
in the world doesn’t translate into transformation unless coupled with
vision and resolve.
This dearth of
purposeful imagination is the most discouraging aspect of student reactions to
the CPE. Aren’t youth supposed to be radical and idealistic, lead the
pack, set trends, go out on a limb and work for the overthrow of unjust and
rotting systems? Say what one will about student movements of the 1960s,
participants wanted an end to the status quo—not just reform of old ways,
but abolishment of them. Today’s French students and twenty-somethings are
an anomaly in that sense. They propose no viable alternatives to de
Villepin’s measures; nor do they insist, as they well might, that the
state ante up, too. The old system of coddling protectionism is all they know,
all they can imagine for themselves, all they demand. Independence and courage
has largely been bred out of them. They’ve chosen the standard French
method of obtaining what they want by getting into bed with large public sector
unions, including transport workers and teachers. This strategy unquestionably gains them
tremendous clout. Such unions regularly interrupt normal life to rattle their
sabers, reminding everyone to pay up and leave benefits untouched. But what does
this clout get students, finally? Too hungry for strong backing, they fail to
understand that they are decimating their own
future, as well as the futures of generations coming behind them.
For the
moment, just as the government has failed to convince students that the CPE
represents something new and positive, French students have failed to convince
me that they are the true hope of their nation. When they start demanding
accountability from their government, expecting the state to work for them
instead of allowing themselves to be bribed, seduced, and nannied by it,
I’ll feel a lot more hopeful. On the off-chance that any French students are
reading this... Stop sleeping with the enemy.
Posted: Thursday - March 30, 2006 at 07:12 PM
