France’s crisis is not political, it is existential

‘Block Everything’ had been planned in July for September 10, and going by the nationwide participation – pollsters and statisticians are sure to quibble what the numbers mean in the national context – this was mostly from the left-end of the political spectrum. Recent protests have been mostly by far-right, and rightward conservatives forces.

‘Block Everything’ is not just left but it also leans towards the extreme left and radical. President Emmanuel Macron, the centrist conservative, who did not agree with the traditional conservatives of the French political establishment, has been trying to chart his own narrow path. And he has been facing hurdles and brickbats.

The French finances are in trouble because its deficit is double the 3 per cent mandated by the European Union. The deficit appears an inane accountancy problem for farmers and workers who are unable to get the right price for their produce and the workers their fair wage. The market is in a lull.

Macron has been trying to make France the glamorous IT centre of Europe but it has not worked. He has also been pushing for exports of French arms manufactures and did not gain much. Macron has another two years left in office, and he wants to leave behind a stable France which does not embrace the far-right, which is the nightmare of republican France.

Macron is looking for the elusive centre which will keep things in balance. He has already lost three prime ministers on the issue of reducing deficits, imposing austerity measures. People at their tether’s end are plain angry, and protest is the only way then can vent their anger. Their anger is not the right answer to solve France’s economic woes, and Macron is aware of it. That is why he remains rather determined in the face of the rising tide of anti-Macron sentiment.

The French political leadership across the political spectrum has been facing this issue freezing pensions, increasing the age of retirement so as to defer the social security payouts for nearly two decades if not more. From Jacques Chirac to Francois Holland to Nicolas Sarkozy to Emanuel Macron – they cover the entire political spectrum if you leave out the communists and Marine Le Pen on far right, they have all faced the same economic dilemmas.

And they failed to make the economic and technological breakthrough that would help the country to make the quantum leap into the future. There is not much the political leaders can do. Despite its intellectual elan, France is stuck at a dead-end. France still remains a formidable leader in the EU along with Germany. This is mainly due to the size of the economy. And its fiercely independent foreign policy stance. And France remains a leading arms manufacturer and exporter of arms in Europe. What seems to anger the restless youth is the apparent economic impasse.

France is desperately in need of a revolution in technology of the scale and depth that it has witnessed the political revolution of 1789, which includes the Napoleonic period! And it is need of techpreneurs of the American kind. Of course, this would offend the rightly proud French. They believe that that they do not need the American model, and they have their own traditions of innovation. This could indeed be the case. But the French thinking classes have to get out in the open, and ask loudly and clearly, “Where are the ideas?” The first thing for the French to recognize is that their crisis is not political, nor is it entirely economic. The French have to tap into their sense of joie de vivre, which will spur them onward.