Internet Commentator

Sense and nonsense

Thomas Sowell has a piece on the French student protests:

French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, who supports the new labor law, has seen his approval rating drop to 36 percent. That happens when you try talking sense to people who prefer to believe nonsense. It is elementary economics that adding to the costs, including risks, of hiring workers tends to reduce the number of hires. It should not be news to anyone, whether or not they have gone to a university, that raising costs usually reduces transactions. The fact such profound ignorance of basic economics and such self-indulgent emotionalism should be prevalent at elite institutions of higher education is one of the many deep-seated failures of universities on both sides of the Atlantic.

Gallic Gaffe

Jacque Chirac on Les Rosbifs:

The only thing that they have ever done for European agriculture is 'mad cow' disease, [...] You cannot trust people who have such bad cuisine. It is the country with the worst food after Finland

This in conversation with Gerhard Schröder and the Hammer of the Chechens himself, Vladimir Putin, leaders of those reknowned gourmet nations, Germany and Russia. How characteristically crass of Chirac to throw in a gratuitous insult to Finland for good measure.

The "wrong" reasons

It is hard to resist the conclusion of many of my free-market confreres that France, while doing the right thing by voting out the proposed EU constitution, has done so for the "wrong" reason of opposing Anglo-Saxon "ultra-liberalism" but resist it I will. Now, I'm a pretty "ultra-liberal" kinda guy. In French terms I'm probably a notch or two past "ultra", (perhaps a "mecha-liberal"?). But, this highlights the basic problem with the entire EU integration project: If France doesn't want "ultra-liberalism" - or more accurately a slightly more reformed and liberalised version of dirigisme - why should she be forced to endure it? What better reason can there be for saying "Non"?

In rejecting the constitution because the compromise on offer was still a step too far for France's cherished "social model", the French voters have (for once!) done a valuable service by demonstrating that there is unlikely ever to be one economic model which will suit every EU country and it is folly to pursue this chimera.

Vive La France!

Nous disons "Non"!

Another reason not to hate the French

I'm generally wary of the "It's politically incorrect, but.." caveat. But, I can't think of any other way of prefacing the link to this, ahem, "politically incorrect" post about French newsreader Melissa Theuriau:

Sometime during the 90’s when cable TV introduced waaay too many sources for getting your daily news fix, stations started ditching their Quaker Oats, grandpa-look-a-like anchormen and replaced them with young, barely literate beauty queens. I mean, who really gives a shit anyways about war, natural disasters, or how some little bitch in China can’t do his Falun Gong. That shit’s worse than devil worshipping. What could be more informative than a low cut blouse, two slutty eyes, and a sexy voice flawlessly breaking news about mass dysentery in Bangladesh!? Sure, CNN’s face of news is looking sweeter than ever, but what’s seen abroad is so f**king hot it can barely even be compared.

Melissa Theuriau brings the evening news, like an upscale Paris call-girl, to millions of lucky French men. I can just imagine the all too common, husband-to-wife scenario each night before the broadcast: “soooo I need to watch the news in private again, it’s.. quite emotional for me.. yea I’ll be needing all that tissue paper.”

Get ready to Windex the plasma!

Francophiles and phobes

Abiola points to a Guardian piece on the book - "Pourquoi les français sont les moins fréquentables de la planète*" by (Frenchmen) Olivier Clodong and Jose-Manuel Lamarque - on how the French are perceived by their fellow Europeans and suggests:

Mon dieu! Could it be that there just may be a touch of truth to the stereotypes about the land of the Franks?

Well, there's no smoke without fire, I guess. But, I suspect that what the British (chauvinists, stubborn), Germans (pretentious, haughty), Italians (snobbish, arrogant) and Greeks (egocentric bons vivants) are mostly responding to is the "official" idealised notion of Frenchness peddled by the political, diplomatic and cultural elite, rather than direct experience of ordinary French people. I've generally found French people, at home and abroad, to be friendly, approachable, polite, helpful - more or less the opposite of the stereotype. Which, of course makes it all the more difficult for me to fathom the bottomless well of political obtuseness they demonstrate when, er, demonstrating or voting.

[* "Why the French are the Worst Company on the Planet"]

I'll second that!

Young Irelander has a simple suggestion:

What if Ireland left the European Union? Would it really be so bad? Really?

I'll bite. Assuming that free trade and free movement with EU countries would remain after secession - and this would be in everyone's interest anyway - the answer would be that not only would it not be "so bad", but it would probably be a huge boon. Leaving aside genuine "Europhiles" who are just intrinsically attracted to the idea of closer European integration - these tend to be overrepresented in "elite" opinion but underrepresented among the public - as I can see it there are three strands of opinion wary of such a withdrawal:

1. "But what about all the EU did for us?, If it wasn't for EU structural funds, we wouldn't have such great roads, bla, bla bla etc." - This I suggest, is based on fallacious reasoning. Such funds weren't contributed with conditions. In any case, whether or not the EU has been a benefit in the past (and I'd argue that the popular belief that structural funds made a significant contribution to our prosperity is mistaken) is irrelevant to whether it is a benefit for Ireland to remain in the EU for the present and future.

2. "But, you can't trust Irish governments to be fiscally prudent. Membership of the EU has acted as a kind of beneficial fiscal straightjacket". I have some sympathy for this as it isn't so far from the truth, particularly when you consider the period from the mid 1980s to the early 1990s. But this is really just another version of the argument above. Ceding fiscal policy to Brussels might have made sense in back then, that doesn't mean it makes sense now.

3. "But, what about free trade and free movement?" Again, I have sympathy for this position but this worry is based on an assumption that one may only have the EU menu fixe and not dine a la carte. But one can have freedom of movement and free trade with the EU without being a member, as Norwegians can attest.

Doomsday deferred?

Perry de Havilland is hopeful that the British electorate will reject the referendum on the EU constitution promised by Tony Blair for 2006:

There will come a day when the obfuscation and doublespeak will finally come to an end and it appears that day will be in 2006. British people have it within their grasp to smash the brittle foundations of the European Union and I hope that there will be many people working to ensure that is exactly what happens regardless of what the apparatchiks of all three main parties want.

While our fellow samizdatista, a pessimistic David Carr makes the astonishing claim that the vote will be rigged!

The government will win the referendum. The whole process will be as rigged as an 18th Century man o'war. And, yes, they will get away with it. It is already a done deal.

I'm going to make a "confident assertion": The British referendum will never take place. My guess is that Blair's two year postponement isn't some sort of augustinian procrastination - "give me the EU constitution, but not yet" - but something much more cynical and characteristically machiavellian.

Blair cherishes his pro-EU image and would resist any attempt to be painted as a "eurosceptic". Given that the French and Germans are intent on proceeding with this constitution, any expressed opposition to it runs that exact risk. Yet he is aware that there is a considerable strain of popular euroscepticism within the EU, particularly in countries whose national constitutions require public referenda, and further that this has manifested itself against treaties of significantly less radical intent than the proposed constitution. If one country rejects the constitution, it is dead in the water. It may not be adopted by the others even if endorsed by popular referenda. As a matter of last resort, he knows that the British would also reject the constitution but, given the likely negative consequence for the Labour party of such a defeat, he will hope that he won't have to avail of this get-out-of-jail card. Hence the two year period.

Ireland is one of a handful of countries required to hold a referendum on the EU constitution and likely to vote against it. One vote against makes the treaty legally dead. Two or more votes against makes it politically dead. Two years is enough time for Blair's European partners - perhaps including, in a delicious irony, France! - to do his dirty work for him obviating the need for the British referendum at all.

Prestige or Pork?

Wales literally falls off the map but its MEP, Glenys Kinnock has her Euro-priorities correct:

The reality is that Wales is on all the maps that matter, in terms of getting substantial amounts of structural funds and so on.

France and Spain, Terrorist suasion

I have made my feelings clear on France's headscarf ban before - I'm against it - However France is quite correct to refuse to drop the ban in response to kidnappers' demands . This is actually a good example to demonstrate what was so wrong about Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero's actions in the wake of the Madrid Bombs and Spanish election. So many of his defenders cried that Zapatero, in withdrawing Spanish troops from Iraq, was only honouring commitments made prior to the bombs and thus couldn't be accused of acceding to the terrorists' demands. Yet the threat changed everything. I think that France should scrap its headscarf ban, but not now and not under any circumstances that terrorists may believe that they influenced that decision. Likewise, even though I disagree with the withdrawal of Spanish peace-keeping forces from Iraq - there is no honour in denying Iraqi civilians protection from terrorists - I do respect that that was the express wish of the Spanish people (one can't really complain considering there are no Irish troops there) but this is not the principal charge against Zapatero which applies even if you thought Spanish withdrawal was the right thing to do. The problem was not the withdrawal but the timing of that withdrawal. Should France drop the ban now it will hand an enormous propaganda boost to Islamic extremists and invite further targeted actions against French citizens and interests. So, even though dropping the ban under any other circumstances, would be the right thing to do, it is the wrong thing to do now.