Little wonder that, now, the newly-elected president, Socialist François Hollande, hastened to criticize Peugeot-Citroën's "social plan" and declared that such plan is "unacceptable in its present form." This is the type of empty declaration that France's political establishment is fond of.
Little wonder, too, that President Hollande has created a ministry of "Productive Recovery" to act as a watchdog against relocations. The head of that ministry is a maverick left-wing politician, Arnaud Montebourg, who published last year a book pledging in favor of protectionism and the "deglobalization" of the world economy.
Is it so difficult to admit that the more obstacles are erected against job dismissals, the firms will feel less inclined to hire new personnel? Is it so hard to concede that the higher the taxes on profits and incomes are, the less willing to invest entrepreneurs will be?
The country's trade unions and left-leaning politicians don't bother to draw lessons from the success of market-friendly reforms carried out elsewhere, notably those enacted in Sweden and other Scandinavian countries as well as in Germany.
Never mind if those countries have managed to weather the current economic crisis better than others in Europe. France's trade unions, think tanks and political leaders brush aside these success stories, arguing that reforms of that nature would undermine the "superior" French "social model" and, consequently, cannot be "transposed" to the French situation.
Be that as it may, while France sees its industries dying one after the other, suffocated by the straightjacket of the state, the minister for "Productive Recovery" calls for "rearming" public power and, as usual, trade unions request still more constraints against workers' dismissals and industrial relocations.
The day is thus approaching when Houellebecq's novel will form part of, not only the courses of French literature, but also the programs of France's economic history.
