A Time For The French To Keep Their Heads -- George Walden, The Telegraph
François Hollande may harbour dreams of a new revolution, but how will he pay for it?
When the last French socialist president, François Mitterrand, was preparing for victory, it was my job as a diplomat to accompany him on a trip to London to call on Jim Callaghan. En route from the airport to No 10, I arranged for him to drop in to Kew Gardens. A mistake. He was so enthralled I couldn’t get him out, and we turned up a trifle late for the prime minister.
The point of the story is French insularity. Mitterrand was a passionate arboriculturalist, yet he knew nothing of the glories of Kew. In France, insularity can go along with a romantic nationalism, on Left and Right, and with François Hollande’s victory we are seeing more of that today.
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My Comment: I concur with this analysis. I live in the Canadian french province of Quebec .... and as long as I have been here .... we have always been following the French model of "nationalism" and "revolution" .... albeit a lite form of it.
The consequences of following this policy on the Quebec economy have been horrendous. Capital flight, high taxes, being dependent on the central government (Ottawa) for handouts and support. Using Quebec as my reference point, my prediction for France is simple .... they will have the same, minus not having someone to bail them out.
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