Disillusionment comes home to la France profonde
A lying budget minister, rising emigration – 'la Crise’ is making itself felt in the French heartland. Community spirit and long village lunches still abound, but for how long? Michael Wright reports
the stark economic figures, which have been scary for a while, with 10 per cent
unemployment and just 0.1 per cent growth in the first quarter of 2013 — taken a
striking turn for the worse in the past few weeks.
“People are morose,” says Jean-François Augrit, a guard on the TGV trains
from Paris to the regions and beyond. “You can see it in their faces. They don’t
believe in anything any more; the Right and Left are just as bad as each other.”
He explains that people have begun to fear that the next generation will be
worse-off than their parents. “This would be the first time that has happened,”
he says firmly, “even going right back to the 19th century.”
Last month, a poll of more than 3,000 French adults found that 68 per cent of
them were depressed about the country’s future. And that was even before the
Cahuzac scandal broke, in which a former budget minister given to winkling out
the kind of slimy tax-dodgers who hide their wealth in secret Swiss bank
accounts was forced to admit that he, ahem, had one too — but only after he had
looked France squarely in the eye and lied and lied, long before the cock crowed
thrice.
The cock is certainly crowing now. The scandal has, in the words of Le Monde,
“unleashed a political tsunami”. But it is the effect that the scandal has had
on the people of France that I find so telling, and so touching. In Britain, we
are used to our politicians lying to us. It is one of the cosy constants in our
daily lives: rocks are hard, trains are late and politicians are incapable of
telling the truth. This is fine, because at least they are consistent, and their
mendacity helps us to forget how easily we lie to ourselves. In France, many
people really do seem to believe that the state is run by people who have their
best interests at heart
We’ve had political scandals before, on the Right and the Left,” says Fabrice Nivard, 58, the respected mayor of Darnac, a village nestling in the heart of la France profonde. “But this one really shocked me, because for a budget minister to tell people to tighten their belts and contribute more, even as he is secretly hiding away his own wealth, is worse than lying. It’s taking the French for a bunch of — well, you can fill in the blank yourself.”
Unfortunately, President François Hollande, who has a sexton’s ability to make a grave situation graver, followed up the Cahuzac scandal with a masterstroke: in the interests of transparency, he ordered his ministers to reveal all their bank accounts and assets. Et voilà! It turns out that they are all just as bad as each other. Even the ones who aren’t millionaires have been pilloried in the press for stashing their shekels in underperforming accounts. What hope for the national economy, when the charlies in charge of it can’t even manage their own money?
“Where is France heading?” I ask Jean-Claude, one of the old boys behind whom I puff along on my rides with the local Limousin cycle club. “I’ll tell you where it’s heading,” he says, over his shoulder. “It’s heading straight into a brick wall.” “But is there no hope?” “Yes, there’s hope,” he concedes. “We hope that the whole thing just dies. You know: goes belly-up. And then we can start again.”
In this context, one can see why Édouard Carmignac, the chairman of France’s largest independent asset manager, recently took the unusual step of paying for a full-page ad in the Financial Times to publish an open letter to President Hollande, in which he warned him of the “suicidal” impact of his failure to curb public spending. “Time is running out,” declared Carmignac, before adding a sly chaser unlikely to aid Hollande’s digestion: “European history is now in quick motion and the discredit that has fallen upon Italy’s politicians should provide food for thought.”
When I telephone my friend Clément Bresard-Billet, a young management consultant working in Paris, he surprises me by announcing that he is planning to move to Australia next year. “Our model is finished,” he explains. “I find it hard to imagine a future here. France is like a patient in intensive care. The family dreams there’s still a bit of life in the old bones but, secretly, they all know it’s the end.” Many of his Parisian friends, he adds, are planning similar moves.
At the last count, more than 300,000 French people were living in Britain. And, after a few years of living in France, where most children want to be civil servants when they grow up – and I have met a daunting number of quite brilliant people stuck in amazingly humdrum jobs – it is easy to see why.
“In Britain, you have the chance to change,” says Bresard-Billet. “In France, once you have chosen a pair of shoes, you must wear them for life.”
Yet the French model does still have its supporters, even in those pockets of the countryside hit hardest by la Crise. “I’m happy to pay heavy social charges,” says Jean-Luc Terrade, who runs our local hardware store. “Solidarity is an important word for me, and France has always been a 'social’ country. We mustn’t go down the English route; that works fine for some people, but I’m not sure you’d hear the poorest in society saying so.”
So how does he propose to save the ailing patient in her intensive-care ward? “I’m waiting for the revolution,” he says. “But to assemble the masses, we need leaders with charisma. And even though I voted for Hollande, that’s not the first adjective I’d apply to him. There’s Nelson Mandela, of course, but I think we’ve left it a bit late to get him.”
Terrade’s humour and optimism are a reminder that not everything in France is darkness. That spirit of solidarité – the instinct of people to help their fellow man — runs wonderfully deep here. The sun is still shining and the trains still run on time. Entire villages conjure up feasts and sit down to them together, just as they always did, and if your six-year-old child happens to get her fingernail torn off by an automated ride-on cat in a Chinese restaurant in Limoges, then a team of no less than five medical staff will soon be repairing the injured digit after a short wait in A&E.
“Why are you photographing us?” asks the nurse who is administering the gas-and-air. “Sorry,” I reply, blushing. “It’s just that, if I don’t, nobody in England will believe me.”
The way things are going, it may not be long before nobody in France will, either.
We’ve had political scandals before, on the Right and the Left,” says Fabrice Nivard, 58, the respected mayor of Darnac, a village nestling in the heart of la France profonde. “But this one really shocked me, because for a budget minister to tell people to tighten their belts and contribute more, even as he is secretly hiding away his own wealth, is worse than lying. It’s taking the French for a bunch of — well, you can fill in the blank yourself.”
Unfortunately, President François Hollande, who has a sexton’s ability to make a grave situation graver, followed up the Cahuzac scandal with a masterstroke: in the interests of transparency, he ordered his ministers to reveal all their bank accounts and assets. Et voilà! It turns out that they are all just as bad as each other. Even the ones who aren’t millionaires have been pilloried in the press for stashing their shekels in underperforming accounts. What hope for the national economy, when the charlies in charge of it can’t even manage their own money?
“Where is France heading?” I ask Jean-Claude, one of the old boys behind whom I puff along on my rides with the local Limousin cycle club. “I’ll tell you where it’s heading,” he says, over his shoulder. “It’s heading straight into a brick wall.” “But is there no hope?” “Yes, there’s hope,” he concedes. “We hope that the whole thing just dies. You know: goes belly-up. And then we can start again.”
In this context, one can see why Édouard Carmignac, the chairman of France’s largest independent asset manager, recently took the unusual step of paying for a full-page ad in the Financial Times to publish an open letter to President Hollande, in which he warned him of the “suicidal” impact of his failure to curb public spending. “Time is running out,” declared Carmignac, before adding a sly chaser unlikely to aid Hollande’s digestion: “European history is now in quick motion and the discredit that has fallen upon Italy’s politicians should provide food for thought.”
When I telephone my friend Clément Bresard-Billet, a young management consultant working in Paris, he surprises me by announcing that he is planning to move to Australia next year. “Our model is finished,” he explains. “I find it hard to imagine a future here. France is like a patient in intensive care. The family dreams there’s still a bit of life in the old bones but, secretly, they all know it’s the end.” Many of his Parisian friends, he adds, are planning similar moves.
At the last count, more than 300,000 French people were living in Britain. And, after a few years of living in France, where most children want to be civil servants when they grow up – and I have met a daunting number of quite brilliant people stuck in amazingly humdrum jobs – it is easy to see why.
“In Britain, you have the chance to change,” says Bresard-Billet. “In France, once you have chosen a pair of shoes, you must wear them for life.”
Yet the French model does still have its supporters, even in those pockets of the countryside hit hardest by la Crise. “I’m happy to pay heavy social charges,” says Jean-Luc Terrade, who runs our local hardware store. “Solidarity is an important word for me, and France has always been a 'social’ country. We mustn’t go down the English route; that works fine for some people, but I’m not sure you’d hear the poorest in society saying so.”
So how does he propose to save the ailing patient in her intensive-care ward? “I’m waiting for the revolution,” he says. “But to assemble the masses, we need leaders with charisma. And even though I voted for Hollande, that’s not the first adjective I’d apply to him. There’s Nelson Mandela, of course, but I think we’ve left it a bit late to get him.”
Terrade’s humour and optimism are a reminder that not everything in France is darkness. That spirit of solidarité – the instinct of people to help their fellow man — runs wonderfully deep here. The sun is still shining and the trains still run on time. Entire villages conjure up feasts and sit down to them together, just as they always did, and if your six-year-old child happens to get her fingernail torn off by an automated ride-on cat in a Chinese restaurant in Limoges, then a team of no less than five medical staff will soon be repairing the injured digit after a short wait in A&E.
“Why are you photographing us?” asks the nurse who is administering the gas-and-air. “Sorry,” I reply, blushing. “It’s just that, if I don’t, nobody in England will believe me.”
The way things are going, it may not be long before nobody in France will, either.
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