The current foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, is responsible for French EU policy. In 2005, he and his crew tried to suffocate the EU treaty in its crib on the pretext that it required fiscal restraint inimical to Socialist (non-)economics.
Now they’re parroting the latest sculpted mendacity about “growth vs. austerity”, when there hasn’t been any austerity to peak of, and assumes that economic growth can only be initiated by government spending.
Then there’s the “30% pay cut” that Hollande and his Ministers are taking in symbolic self-debasement before they tax-and-spend, ending up with large personal empires at their disposal when they’re deposed. On the other hand, the idea of, say, reducing government by 30% to stimulate growth would never occur to them in a million years.
As I said: now you’ve got your socialists, see. So what you’re going to get is a lot of fake issues and generalized bedlam as light entertainment.
Behind the Façades in France: What expats and the mainstream media (French and American alike) fail to notice (or fail to tell you) about French attitudes, principles, values, and official positions…