Thread: 80% Of French People Against Globalization

Vast majority of French against globalization: poll

Nicolas Sarkozy, France's President and UMP candidate for the 2012 French presidential election sings the national anthem after delivering a speech during a political rally in front of local councillors as part of his re-election campaign in Paris April 11, 2012. Credit: Reuters/Philippe Wojazer

PARIS | Wed Apr 11, 2012 3:25pm EDT

PARIS (Reuters) - A majority of the French favor protectionist measures and see globalization as bad for jobs, a poll showed, suggesting support for a trend in France's presidential campaign that has pushed President Nicolas Sarkozy to advocate a "Buy European" policy.

The survey by pollster IFOP and due to be published on Thursday in La Croix daily showed that eight out of 10 French people saw globalization as hurting employment, while nearly seven in 10 said it helped to increase public deficits.

Of the 1,052 people questioned by IFOP between April 6 and 10, only 22 percent saw globalization as a "good thing" for their country, while seven in 10 said France should increase taxes on products imported from emerging countries.

Sixty-two percent said France should restore customs duties at its borders unilaterally if the European Union failed to raise levies on foreign goods.

Hostility for globalization has taken centre-stage in France's election campaign, with far-right chief Marine Le Pen and hard leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon gathering some 30 percent of vote intentions in the first of two election rounds on April 22.

Le Pen advocates pulling France out of the euro zone and toughening the country's borders, while Melenchon has promised to reassert French sovereignty in international bodies such as the European Union and the NATO defense alliance.

Sarkozy - who polls show leading in the first round over Socialist candidate Francois Hollande but losing to him in a May 6 runoff - has also toughened his attitude toward trade, notably with emerging nations such as China and India.

In a newspaper interview last week, Sarkozy warned that he was serious about seeking more trade protectionism in Europe and tighter external border controls, threatening to resurrect former president Charles de Gaulle's "empty chair" approach to European negotiations.

De Gaulle triggered a crisis in the nascent European Economic Community in 1965 when he withdrew France's representative during a disagreement over agricultural funding.

Among his campaign proposals are halving the number of foreigners entering France legally each year, toughening conditions for access to benefits and pushing for a "Buy European" law to be enacted within a year of his election.

Targeting emerging nations, he has threatened to impose unilateral trade restrictions on public procurement for any country that does not reciprocate Europe's trade policy by opening its procurement market to foreign investors.

(Reporting By Nicholas Vinocur)

Vast majority of French against globalization: poll | Reuters

A Grimy Dipstick into France’s Gritty Economic Realty


Submitted by testosteronepit on 04/12/2012 10:41 -0400

The first quarter of 2012 was brutal for businesses in France: 16,206 filed for bankruptcy. A trajectory that may demolish the prior annual record set in 2009 during the worst of the financial crisis when 61,595 firms went bust. Since then, bankruptcy filings eased off: 58,673 in 2010 and 58,195 in 2011. But now the direction has changed—and worse, it is threatening a lot more jobs.

Bankruptcy filings aren’t clean, unlike GDP numbers which are adjusted and groomed and beautified in a million ways; they’re raw and ugly, but useful, like a grimy dipstick into the gritty reality at the bottom of the economic crankcase.

Under French law, they fall into three categories: liquidation, restructuring, and “safeguarding,” an option since 2005 that allows debtors that are not yet insolvent, but can demonstrate financial distress, to benefit from the safeguarding proceedings—with the goal of keeping teetering companies from toppling.

While the increase in the number of the filings was only 0.3% over last year, the composition has changed and larger firms with more employees have filed. Tiny outfits with 0 to 2 employees, representing the vast majority of the filings (11,565), actually declined in number, many having been wiped out earlier during the crisis. But the larger companies with sufficient resources to survive the crisis were getting whacked: filings by those with 3 to 9 employees (3,490 firms) inched up 1.6%, those with 10 to 49 employees (1,028 firms) increased by 5.2%, those with 50 to 99 employees (69 firms) jumped 11.3%, those with 100 to 200 employees (40 firms) skyrocketed a sobering 73%, and those with over 200 employees (14 firms) jumped by 16.7%.

That larger firms are now crumbling at a faster rate is a sign of just how tough the economy has become. Unlike their German counterparts, they’re not focused on exporting to developing nations where business has been a heck of a lot better than in France or in much of Europe. The French auto industry is an example. It's in deep trouble, with nefarious consequences for smaller suppliers. But not just in France. The R-word—restructuring—is being bandied about with dire warnings of plant closings and mass layoffs. Exactly what you can't easily do in Europe. For that whole debacle, read.... Fiasco in the Auto Industry.

The companies that filed for bankruptcy in the first quarter represented 65,200 jobs that are now threatened or are already evaporating—up a breathtaking 16% from last year. Unemployment has grown for ten months in a row to 2.87 million in February, the highest since October 1999. Unemployment and underemployment rose to 4.28 million, the highest ever. Job offers sagged 9.5% from a year ago.

With companies and jobs at risk, the French are searching for a savior, a veritable deus ex machina. Well, not Nicolas Sarkozy and not François Hollande, though one of them will most likely occupy the Elysée for the next five years. But protectionism—according to a just released IFOP poll. And it would violate the most fundamental rules of the European Union:

- 82% believe that globalization is bad for jobs in France.
- 75% believe that competition with countries like China or India will have negative consequences for jobs in France over the next decade.
- 69% believe that globalization worsens France’s budget deficits.
- 70% believe that a solution to globalization would have to include an increase in duties on products imported from developing nations.
- 62% believe that France should erect customs barriers against imports from developing nations if the European Union refuses to do so.
- And only 22% believe that open markets are a "good thing" for France.

However, instead of drowning in a sea of protectionist unanimity, some intrepid dissenters spoke up:

Without globalization there would be no roadworthy car, there would be no cell phone in France, there would be no internet line.... This survey is really an expression of the pervading cowardice that has spread over the French people, incapable of taking up a vital challenge, that is to roll up their sleeves to take up the challenge of competition and revive our forces thwarted by massive assistance and social excess...! Get up, France, go to work, our children will thank you!

The majority of the businesses that have filed for bankruptcy have been in trouble for years and have used up their resources trying to stay alive. Now the moment of truth has come. Even large firms are struggling. But when they’re trying to lay off people, their executives may be rewarded with a very special, uniquely French treatment.... Taking Bosses Hostage with Impunity: a Labor Negotiating Tactic in France.

A Grimy Dipstick into France