Hooray, the Socialist Beat the Socialist in France

Back in 2012, I endorsed a wretched socialist, Francois Hollande, to be president of France.

I knew he was terrible, but the supposedly right-wing incumbent, Nicolas Sarkozy, also was a proponent of dirigisme. As I wrote at the time, “it’s always better to let the left-wing party win when the supposedly right-wing party has a statist candidate.”

In France’s next election, in 2017, French voters faced a similarly dismal choice. Emmanuel Macron ran against Marine Le Pen and I urged voters to “pick the socialist over the socialist.”

Macron prevailed in that race and just won a rematch against Le Pen on Sunday.

I didn’t bother writing about the race ahead of time because it didn’t matter. Neither candidate promoted good ideas.

If you want to know France’s problems, the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World is a good place to start.

According to the most recent edition, France ranks #53, which is a very poor grade for a developed nation.

The country’s biggest problem is fiscal policy. Out of 163 nations, it ranks #155 for “size of government.”

That’s even worse than Greece.

And if you look at the historical data from the Fraser Institute, you’ll see that France’s score actually has declined since Macron won in 2017.

Not by much, to be sure, but still a move in the wrong direction. Moreover, given France’s demographic outlook, things will get much worse in the not-too-distant future.

All the more reason why I’m not excited about Macron’s reelection victory.

But what do others say?

If you want a semi-optimistic perspective, the Wall Street Journal opined on the potential implications and seems to think Macron’s heart is in the right place.

The question is whether Mr. Macron will do more in the next five years to make France great again. …Mr. Macron defies traditional political divisions. In his first term he appointed center-right figures to key positions and made progress with tax and labor reform.  …Ms. Le Pen…ran to his left on economics, calling for a wealth tax on financial assets and trade protectionism. …While Mr. Macron showed free-market instincts in his first term, he has tacked to the left recently to shore up support from young and progressive voters. Far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon says he wants to be prime minister, and the coming National Assembly elections could be decisive in determining the direction of the country. Focusing on pro-growth reform—rather than climate obsessions or populist gestures like limiting executive pay—would help restore the economic vitality that Mr. Macron originally promised. It would also make it less likely for a radical like Ms. Le Pen or Mr. Mélenchon to take power in five years.

For a more negative perspective, here’s a CapX column from 2019, authored by Anne-Elisabeth Moutet.

…tax increases; a ballooning national debt and the highest government spending ratio to GDP in Europe… It’s become harder than ever to pinpoint a specific “Macron line”, but whatever it is, it isn’t a liberal one. …The president’s idea for modernising France’s industry is a mix of high-handed, interventionist industrial policy and a brushed-up reliance on top-down sectoral choices reminiscent of every single one of his predecessors, from de Gaulle onwards. …he announced €5bn investment into Le French Tech from well-coaxed institutional investors, with the aim of creating “25 French unicorns by 2025”. (The irony of having a government programme dedicated to create privately-held tech start-ups valued above $1bn seems to have escaped him). …The president’s policies oscillate according to polling and estimated image gains. As a result, the supposedly “courageous” reforms promised…are…watered down. …Macron believes sincerely in his top-down…plans.

For what it’s worth, I suspect Macron understands that his nation needs pro-market reform, but I also think he isn’t willing to take any risks to make it happen.

P.S. A few years ago, I shared a story that told you “everything you need to know about France.” Here are some excerpts from another story that captures the awful mindset holding back that country.

In less than three weeks, board game lovers in France bought all 10,000 copies of Kapital!, a new game about class struggle, injustice and French politics created by French sociologists. …One player will draw the good lot and fall among the rich; others will be the struggling poor and middle class. All players have to fight their way to the “tax haven” at the conclusion of the board. …The sociologists created the game to raise awareness about social injustice and the gap between the rich and poor. …The game was an instant success, selling out in less than three weeks.

This is almost as bad as the European Commission’s online game that was designed to brainwash children in favor of higher taxes.

P.P.S. Here’s a must-watch video explaining why America shouldn’t become another France.

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Is France Suffering from Excessive Austerity?

If asked to describe French economic policy, rational people will use phrases such as “big government” and “high taxes.” Or perhaps “dirigisme” and “bureaucracy.”

And they would be correct.

Here’s a chart from the OECD, showing spending burdens for major European nations. In a continent that’s known for big welfare states and costly government, France (highlighted in red) easily ranks as the worst of the worst.

France also ranks as the worst of the worst when looking just at spending on social welfare programs.

Indeed, it’s probably just a matter of time before the country becomes another Greece.

But none of these facts matter to Rokhaya Diallo, a French journalist who thinks her nation’s government is too small.

I’m not joking. She actually wrote a column for the Washington Post asserting that France’s response to the corornavirus has been hampered by fiscal austerity.

…the government has failed multiple times at handling the crisis… It was a shock for citizens to discover that France — the world’s seventh largest economy, widely praised for its remarkable health system — could end up struggling to cover the basic needs of its hospitals. But was it a total surprise? Not really. …President Emmanuel Macron…policies…favored the richest fringes of the population while abandoning workers who did not earn enough to cover their necessities. …Under Macron, more than $3 billion (2.6 billion euros) has been cut from public hospitals in 2018 and 2019 — far more than under his predecessor. And it took the pandemic to ensure there were no further cuts to this vital infrastructure. …a politician who claimed he intended to govern a “start-up nation” and thereby support a neoliberal agenda. …For the past two decades, French public services have been damaged by austerity rules… The major health crisis has exposed the serious damages caused by the neoliberal turn implemented in France. At a moment when effective public services are needed more than ever before, austerity is a threat not only to the social stability but also the well-being of the population.

Wow. I’m reminded of the official from Belgium (3rd-biggest fiscal burden in the above chart) who complained a few years ago about “the small size of the Belgian government.”

These people must live in an alternative universe where facts don’t matter.

By the way, if Ms. Diallo is actually interested in “the well-being of the population,” I wonder what she thinks of the OECD data that shows that people in the bottom 10 percent in the United States are better off than the average middle class person in France?

Given that the United States, with its medium-sized government, does so much better than France, with its large-sized government, how can she reconcile those numbers with her dogmatic view that society will be better off if government is even bigger?

Needless to say, I’m not holding my breath expecting her to address these issues.

But the people of France have noticed something is wrong. Many of them would flee to the United States if they had the opportunity.

P.S. Regarding the title of Ms. Diallo’s column, neoliberal is the term used in Europe for classical liberals – i.e., advocates of small government and individual liberty.

P.P.S. The current president of France, Emmanuel Macron, has expressed some sympathy for market-oriented reforms, which may explain Ms. Diallo’s hostility (but does not justify her inaccuracy).

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Socialism in the Modern World, Part IV: French Dirigisme

My multi-part series on Socialism in the Modern World has featured Venezuela, the Nordic nations, and Greece.

But no discussion of dirigiste policy would be complete without a look at France.

After all, not only does France have a history of imposing 100-percent-plus tax rates, it also hold the dubious honor of being Europe’s biggest welfare state.

And it has the highest overall burden of government spending.

These are not good numbers, especially when you consider the demographic changes that are happening in Europe.

Sadly, there’s a long history of French statism. Andras Toth of the Carl Menger Institute explained some of the France’s grim economic history.

If there is an example of a dirigiste, interventionist state, then that is France in Europe. France was the birthplace of the mercantilist, absolutist monarchy in the early modern period. …the practice of mercantilist protection and monopolization of key industries, including the state-mandated “industrial development policies” …Under the rule of the famous finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert… France sank into a series of crises and lost her preeminent position in Europe. …The modern French state is the stepchild of the political culture of the Bourbons. It is the prime example of dirigisme. It redistributes as much as 56 percent of annual GDP and imposes the highest tax burden in Europe. The French state directly manages key industries and sustains one of the largest welfare states in Europe. It also imposes complicated bureaucratic red tape on economic actors, trailing way behind the Scandinavian states and Germany as far as ease of business is concerned.

Though he also explains that the current president seems to understand that France needs less government and more economic freedom.

Macron was the first French politician to build his election campaign on reform and competitiveness in order to keep up France’s position in the world. Those who voted for him knew what to expect. As a member of Hollande’s team, he proposed increasing the work week from 35 to 37 hours to lessen the tax burden on higher incomes, and the competitiveness package he developed aimed to lessen the protection of workers and companies in order to promote growth. …France is again at a crossroads: She has to choose between the policies of Jean-Baptiste Colbert and those of Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, the great French liberal economist who was the economic minister of France between 1774 and 1776 and who argued for free trade, less taxation, and less regulation.

I also sympathize with what Macron is trying to achieve (at least with regard to domestic reforms).

But I fear it may be too little and too late.

Especially since the New York Times reports that Macron is increasingly unpopular.

…attacks…that Mr. Macron is a self-seeking servant of society’s fortunate… The undisguised hostility has made clear that, less than a year into this new presidency, anti-Macron sentiment is emerging as a potent force. It is being fueled by a pervasive sense that Mr. Macron is pushing too far, too fast in too many areas — nicking at the benefits of pensioners and low earners, giving dollops to the well-off and slashing sacred worker privileges.

Though he does deserve some of his unpopularity. He imposed green taxes late last year that triggered nationwide riots from motorists and other unhappy citizens.

But he’s also unpopular for some of his good policies, which leads me to fear that France may be past the tipping point, meaning that genuine and meaningful reform no longer is possible because too many voters are on the government teat.

I hope that’s not the case. France used to be one of the most wealthy and powerful nations in the world. But now its living standards are barely average according to the OECD’s AIC numbers.

Because of the ongoing debate about what the term actually means, it’s unclear whether France’s tepid economic performance can be blamed on socialism.

But we shouldn’t doubt that the country is paying a considerable price for having too much government.

P.S. My favorite cartoon about French socialism actually features Barack Obama.

P.P.S. One of the world’s greatest economists was French, but politicians in France obviously ignored Bastiat just like they ignored Turgot.

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Two-Plus Cheers for President Macron’s Plan to Gut the French Exit Tax

Assuming elected officials care about the consequences of their actions, the obvious answer to a question isn’t always the right answer.

• Q: Why should a (sensible) politician oppose the minimum wage, especially since some workers will get a pay hike?

A: Because the bottom rungs of the economic ladder will disappear and marginally skilled people will lose a chance to find employment and develop work skills.

• Q: Why should a (sensible) politician oppose so-called employment-protection legislation, especially since some employees will be protected from dismissal?

A: Because employers will be less likely to hire workers if they don’t have the freedom to fire them if circumstances change.

• Q: Why should a (sensible) politician oppose class-warfare taxation, especially since they could redistribute money to 90 percent of voters?

A: Because the short-run benefits of buying votes will be offset by long-run damage to investment, competitiveness, and job creation.

Many politicians are not sensible, of course, which is why bad policy is so common.

So it’s worth noting when someone actually makes the right decision, especially if they do it for the right reason.

With that in mind, President Emmanuel Macron deserves praise for gutting his country’s punitive “exit tax.” The U.K.-based Financial Times has the key details.

French president Emmanuel Macron said that he would remove the so-called exit tax as it was damaging for France’s image as a place to do business. The tax requires those entrepreneurs or investors who hold more than €800,000 in financial assets or at least 50 per cent of a company to pay capital gains up to 15 years after leaving France.  …A finance ministry spokesperson on Saturday confirmed “the removal of the exit tax as it existed.” …”The exit tax sends a negative message to entrepreneurs in France, more than to investors. Why? Because it means that beyond a certain threshold, you are penalised if you leave,” Mr Macron had said… “I don’t want any exit tax. It doesn’t make sense. People are free to invest where they want. I mean, if you are able to attract [investment], good for you, but if not, one should be free to divorce,” added the French president.

Kudos to Macron. He not only points out that such a tax discourages investment and entrepreneurship, but he also makes the moral argument that people should be free to leave a jurisdiction that mistreats them.

To be sure, the proposal isn’t perfect.

Mr Macron has now decided to introduce a new “anti-abuse” tax targeted at assets sold within two years of someone leaving the country. …“The new system will henceforth target divestments occurring shortly after leaving France — two years — to avoid letting people make short trips abroad in order to optimise tax efficiencies,” added the spokesperson.

This is why I gave the plan two-plus cheers instead of three cheers.  Though I understand the political calculation. It would create a lot of controversy if a rich person moved for one year to one of the several European nations that have no capital gains tax (Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, etc), sold their assets, and then immediately moved back to France the following year.

The right policy, needless to say, is for there to be no capital gains tax, period.

But let’s not get sidetracked. Here are a few additional details from Reuters.

France imposed the so-called “Exit Tax” in 2011 during the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy. …Its aim was to stop individuals temporarily changing their tax domicile in order to skirt French taxes but pro-business President Emmanuel Macron says it damages France’s attractiveness as an investment destination.

Yes, you read correctly, the class-warfare policy wasn’t imposed by the hard-left Francois Hollande, but by the Nicolas Sarkozy, the supposed conservative but de-facto leftist who preceded him.

What’s particularly bizarre is that Macron was a senior official for Hollande, yet he is the pro-market reformer who is trying to save France.

P.S. I’m embarrassed to admit that the United States has a very punitive exit tax (which Hillary Clinton wanted to make even worse).

P.P.S. Since one of my three examples at the beginning of today’s column dealt with the perverse consequences of “employment-protection laws,” I suppose it’s worth noting that’s another area where Macron is trying to reduce government intervention.

P.P.P.S. While Macron is a pro-market reformer at the national level, he advocates very bad ideas for the European Union.

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The Macron Paradox: Internal Liberalization, External Statism

In last year’s French presidential election between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, I joked that voters should choose the socialist over the socialist, but made a serious point that Macron – despite having been part of Hollande’s disastrous government – was preferable since there was at least a hope of market-oriented reform.

…the chance of Macron being good are greater than zero. After all, it was the left-wing parties that started the process of pro-market reforms in Australia and New Zealand. And it was a Social Democrat government in Germany that enacted the labor-market reforms that have been so beneficial for that nation.

And after Macron won the election, I reviewed some of his initiatives to restrain government, including plans to reduce the burden of government spending, lower France’s corporate tax rate, and to shrink the size of the bureaucracy.

His ideas sounded so good that I wrote – only partly in jest – that “I wish the Republicans in Washington were as sensible as these French socialists.”

We’re not quite to the one-year anniversary of his election, but let’s take a look at Macron’s track record. And we’ll start with a very encouraging report from the New York Times.

…if France’s young president, Emmanuel Macron, has made one thing clear, it is that he is not afraid to shake up France and take on its venerable institutions. Now it is the turn of the heavily subsidized and deeply indebted French rail system. Mr. Macron says he wants to erase the railway workers’ special status, which gives them more generous benefits than almost any other workers, including a guarantee of early retirement. In doing so, he has set himself a new and formidable challenge in his expanding campaign to reshape France’s society and economy, which started last year with a law that made it easier for private companies to hire and fire workers, a near revolution for France.

Macron has a difficult task.

…the railway workers are a public-sector work force, one of the most powerful in the country, with a chokehold on as many as five million riders daily. When they go on strike, the whole country feels it. …rail unions have already pledged to join a strike by public-sector employees planned for Thursday… The rail workers then plan weeks of strikes starting in April that will be staged on a rolling basis.

Here’s some of what Macron wants to fix.

French rail workers’ current, ample benefits — including in some cases, the option of retiring at 52 — date to the first half of the 20th century, when many railway jobs involved hard, physical labor… Mr. Macron…to push for a broader overhaul that, for new hires, would end advantages like guaranteed jobs, automatic pay raises and generous social security benefits. …The French rail system is both heavily subsidized and deeply in debt, to the tune of 55 billion euros, or about $68 billion.

And if the French President succeeds, there are other reforms on the horizon.

Mr. Macron has pledged to follow the railway plan with an overhaul of the unemployment system later in the year. Next year he intends to take on the French pension system. …changing the employment terms for railway workers appears to be part of a larger crusade to push French workers into the 21st century.

Good. Similar reforms were very beneficial for German workers and the German economy, so I’m sure Macron’s proposals will produce good results in France.

Writing last October for CapX, Diego Zuluaga expressed optimism about Macron’s agenda.

…it is the French government that is tackling the big barriers to growth and dynamism that have stifled their economy since 1975. …Emmanuel Macron…has vowed to attack this status quo. He aims to deconstruct the onerous French labour market law, the infamous Code du travail. This is a 1,600-page, 10,000-article gargantuan piece of legislation which is blamed for clobbering employment in France over the past 25 years. …Macron may be able to deliver considerable reforms when it comes to the labour market. His cabinet intends to move a larger share of collective bargaining to the firm level, remove the requirement of union representation for small- and medium-sized businesses, limit severance pay – right now it averages €24,000 per dismissal – to give employers greater certainty about the costs of hiring… Spain reformed its dysfunctional hiring and firing regulations in 2012, and robust employment growth followed. Now, it is long-ossified France that is taking up the baton.

If you stopped reading at this point, you might conclude that Macron is a French version of Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher.

But that would be a considerable exaggeration. The French President also is pushing some questionable policies, such as higher taxes on luxury goods. But, in Macron’s defense, those class-warfare taxes are an offset for the abolition of the wealth tax, which was a very good reform.

Emmanuel Macron’s administration will propose a tax on luxury yachts, supercars and precious metals in France’s 2018 budget. Lawmakers will propose amendments after critics attacked the President’s move to scrap the wealth tax in France. Mr Macron abolished the tax, which has been seen as a symbol of social justice for the left but blamed by others for driving thousands of millionaires abroad. …The wealth tax, introduced by the Socialists in the 1980s, was levied on individuals with assets above 1.3 million euros (£1.2 million).

Since I’m not familiar with the details (i.e., do these changes result in a revenue-neutral shift, a net tax cut, or a net tax increase?), there’s no way to determine if swapping the wealth tax for luxury taxes is a net positive or a negative. Though I assume the overall effect is positive because wealth taxes are a very bad idea and luxury taxes, while self-destructive, generally are futile.

But this doesn’t let Macron off the hook. Even if we decide that he’s a pro-market reformer inside his country, he has a very bad habit of promoting statism at the European level.

The Wall Street Journal opined unfavorably last year on his plan for greater centralization.

…the French President issued a call for more, more and more Europe. …His EU would be responsible for many of the functions traditionally performed by a nation-state, such as defense, taxation, migration control and economic regulation. …The problem is…Mr. Macron’s dreams of fiscal and economic union. He wants to create an EU finance ministry, funded by corporate and other taxes, that can spend money across the bloc with minimal interference from national capitals. Mr. Macron also wants to harmonize—eurospeak for raise—corporate taxes across the EU. He’d further establish Franco-German regulatory excess as the benchmark for the rest of the EU… This is a recipe for political failure because Europeans already know these policies are economic duds.

Writing for the New York Times, a German journalist poured cold water on Macron’s plan to give redistribution powers to the European Union.

It would be funny if it weren’t dangerous — the solution offered by the new, pro-Europe president, Emmanuel Macron, is to create a eurozone budget, with its own finance minister. …Mr. Macron’s proposal is a disaster in the making. It will only further alienate Europeans from one another and weaken the bloc economically. …Brussels’s money has often been Europe’s curse. The Greek government, for instance, knew it could take for granted the support of the other euro members for its unsustainable budget after Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany recklessly declared, “If the euro fails, Europe fails.” Athens slowed down on reform, knowing Brussels would bail it out, and northern Europeans grew angry. In the worst case, Mr. Macron’s plan could turn this disincentive into a characteristic feature of the European Union. …Brussels would end up holding the purse but not the purse strings.

So what’s the story with Macron’s schizophrenic approach? Why is he a pro-market Dr. Jekyll for French policy but a statist Mr. Hyde for European policy?

I don’t have the answer, but Diego Zuluaga wrote about this dichotomy for CapX.

The puzzle of Macronism is that it tends to advocate dynamism at home, but stasis abroad. The French President, both during his tenure in Hollande’s cabinet and in his new office, has championed reform of the country’s bewilderingly byzantine employment code, which has promoted social exclusion and led to a high rate of structural unemployment. …But Macron’s liberalism seemingly stops at France’s borders. On the EU level, he has called for increased risk-sharing among euro member states, a eurozone budget and finance minister… Whatever one makes of his climate-change activism, it is nothing if not dirigiste in the extreme, wishing to curb carbon emissions through bureaucratic pacts on a global level. What we are left with is the pro-market equivalent of Stalin’s pre-WWII economic policy of  “socialism in one country”. Liberalism in one country acknowledges the need for economic flexibility and a greater reliance on market forces at home. It champions tax reform and deregulation of industry and hiring. But it shuns those principles on the international level.

By the way, Mr. Zuluaga is using “liberalism” in the classic sense, meaning pro-market policies.

Let’s close with a couple of items that show France still has a long way to go.

First, a leftist columnist wants us to believe that recent riots, caused by a sale on Nutella, are symbolic of a dystopian future.

You may have seen the videos: in French supermarkets Intermarché, customers are rushing towards shelves of Nutella jars. They’re running, shouting, fighting, rummaging to grab a jar of the chocolate flavoured paste… This mess happened simultaneously in various French supermarkets when grocery chain Intermarché advertised a massive sale on 1kg Nutella jars, priced at €1,41 instead of the usual €4,50. …I don’t find this news funny, not even remotely. …it is telling of a France that is more and more divided… The massive response to this sale shines light…on the precarious position in which many French workers, and shoppers, find themselves. …And it’s not going to get any better for them. Macron’s looming labour reform is already eroding French workers’ rights… Macron’s great vision for France increasingly looks like a country where only the rich and “successful” will be able to afford Nutella – and those who “are nothing” will be left to fight for sale prices.

This type of over-wrought analysis makes me want to cheer for Macron.

Why? Because I understand that the best hope for workers is faster growth, not “labor-protection policies” that actually undermine job creation and cause wages to stagnate.

Second, we have a story that highlights the impossible regulatory burden in France.

A French boulanger has been ordered to pay a €3,000 fine for working too hard after he failed to close his shop for one day a week last summer. …Under local employment law, two separate regulations from 1994 and 2000 require bakers’ shops to close once a week… He has been advised the only way to get around the regulations would be to open a second boulangerie with different opening hours. …The federation of Aube boulangeries and patisseries questioned 126 members at the end of last year: the majority were in favour of maintaining the obligatory one-day closure. Eric Scherrer of the retail union CLIC-P, said French employment laws were there to protect workers and employers and had to be respected. …“These people need to have a rest day each week. We can’t just allow them to work non-stop. It’s absolutely necessary that both bosses and employees have a day of rest.”

The bottom line is that Macron should drop his statist European-wide proposals and put all of his focus on fixing France.

If you look at his country’s scores from Economic Freedom of the World, he should be working day and night to reduce the fiscal burden of government.

And lowering the regulatory burden should be the second-most important priority.

P.S. If the numbers in this poll are still accurate, Macron better fix his nation’s bad policies or his productive citizens will escape to America. After all, France is a great place to live if you’re already rich, but not so good if you aspire to become rich.

P.P.S. Here’s a story highlighting the lavish government-financed benefits for the privileged class in France.

P.P.P.S. My favorite French-themed cartoon features Obama and Hollande.

P.P.P.P.S. And let’s not forget Paul Krugman’s conspiracy theory about a “plot against France.”

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By Making it Easier to Fire Workers, Macron’s Reforms Will Encourage French Employers to Hire More Workers

I like France, in part because it’s a nice place to visit, but also because I’ve been able to use the country as an example of bad public policy.

• It’s tax system is a nightmare, leading entrepreneurs to escape to other nations (hardly a surprise when tax rates can exceed 100 percent and politicians equate taxes with patriotism!). In some cases, tax rates are so punitive that revenues fall rather than rise.
• The French bureaucratic elite is pampered with costly perks and lavish compensation and the nation’s cossetted political class is famously self serving.
• And the regulatory system is a disaster, which not only hinders economic growth but also contributes to an erosion of social capital as people exploit the system and adopt an entitlement mentality.
• One reason for the bad tax system is that the French government consumes a huge share of economic output. The welfare state is enormous as privileged sectors of the population get expensive handouts.

It’s hard to pick which policy does the most damage. As a fiscal policy wonk, I’m tempted to blame France’s woes on high taxes and wasteful spending.

However, there’s a strong case that labor law is the worst feature of economic policy. France has all sorts of rules that “protect” employees, but the net effect is that workers suffer because these laws discourage entrepreneurs from creating jobs.

And even though I get a lot of mileage out of making France a bad example, I actually hope that the nation’s new government will move policy in the right direction. Indeed, this is why I wanted France’s current President, Emmanuel Macron, to get elected.

Yes, he used to be part of the previous socialist government that sought to make things worse rather than better. But I figured he was most likely to enact some pro-market reforms. And it appears my hopes may be realized, at least with regard to labor policy.

The BBC reports on why Macron wants reform, what he wants to do, and what likely will happen.

President Emmanuel Macron’s government has begun its drive to overhaul France’s rigid labour laws, vowing to “free up the energy of the workforce”. …France has an unemployment rate of 9.5%, double that of the other big European economies and Mr Macron has vowed to cut it to 7% by 2022.

Here’s what he is proposing.

The reforms aim to make it easier for bosses to hire and fire. …France’s labour code is some 3,000 pages long and is seen by many as a straitjacket for business. Among the biggest reforms, individual firms are to be offered more flexibility in negotiating wages and conditions. …If a business reached a deal with the majority of its workforce on working hours and pay that agreement would trump any agreement in the wider industry. …The government wants to facilitate deals at local level by encouraging companies with fewer than 50 employees to set up workers’ committees that can bypass unions. One of the thorniest problems for the government is how to make it easier for companies to dismiss staff. There is to be a cap on damages that can be awarded to workers for unfair dismissal. However, after months of consultations, ministers have agreed to increase the cap from their original proposal. The cap would be limited to three months’ pay for two years of work and 20 months’ pay for 30 years. Until now the minimum pay-out for two years’ employment was six months of salary.

And he’ll probably get what he wants, both because some of the bigger unions have decided to play ball and also because he’s been granted authority to unilaterally make changes.

Protests against the plan are expected next month, but two of the biggest unions say they will not take part. Jean-Claude Mailly, the leader of Force Ouvrière (FO), said that while the reforms were far from perfect, the government had carried out “real consultation” and FO would play no role in demonstrations on 12 September. The union with the biggest presence in the private sector, CFDT, said its members would not take to the streets either, although it was ultimately disappointed that its position was not reflected in the final text. …Mr Macron has already won parliamentary backing to push these reforms through by decree. An opinion poll on Wednesday showed that nine out of 10 French people agreed that their country’s labour code had to be reformed.

Dalibor Rohac of the American Enterprise Institute has some analysis of what’s been proposed.

…the National Assembly and Senate…authorized France’s government to amend the country’s byzantine labor code by executive orders… Prime Minister Édouard Philippe unveiled the details of the reform, divided into five decrees, on Thursday. So what exactly are they seeking to achieve? Perhaps most important is the introduction of caps on redundancy pay to those whose employment has been terminated without a just cause…stricter caps are introduced for small companies, for which large redundancy payments can be ruinous. It will also become easier for multinational companies to justify termination of employment on economic grounds. …it will be possible to downsize or close down French operations without having to subsidize them first from profits made overseas. …Companies with fewer than 20 employees will not have to rely on labor union representatives for their collective contracts. Subsidiaries of companies will have more freedom to offer temporary work contracts.

Dalibor is not overly impressed by this collection of changes.

…measured by the standards of what France needs, it is not much… The extent to which the reform elicits a strong reaction reflects purely the overregulated status quo, rather than the revolutionary nature of the proposed measures. …the government is doing something right, however timid.

The Wall Street Journal‘s editorial is a bit more optimistic.

French voters this spring gave themselves their best shot in a generation at reviving their moribund economy, and President Emmanuel Macron is now taking advantage of the opportunity. …the labor-market reforms he unveiled Thursday could remake the eurozone’s second-largest economy. …Mr. Macron will limit the severance payouts courts can mandate for fired workers. He will free small companies with nonunion workers from the straitjacket of national collective-bargaining agreements covering working hours, overtime pay, vacation benefits and the like. Companies will have more scope to negotiate labor deals at the firm level rather than being forced to abide by national agreements.

By reducing the potential cost of employing workers, the reforms will lead to more employment.

The severance overhaul will go a long way toward inducing businesses to hire more workers. Small- and medium-size French companies report pervasive fear of expanding their workforce lest they be stuck with problem employees or face ruinous expenses to lay off workers if economic conditions change.

And France desperately needs reform.

French unemployment is still 9.5% even at its five-year low. That’s double the rate in Germany, and French unemployment has become a social crisis, especially for young people frozen out of the job market. The jobless rate for French between age 15 and 24 is 25%—for those who haven’t moved to London or the U.S.

Though the WSJ does recognize that the reforms are merely a modest step in the right direction.

France isn’t becoming a laissez-faire paradise. Even if Mr. Macron’s labor overhaul takes effect, the French workplace will still be considerably more regulated than America’s.

Let’s close with some excerpts from a story in the New York Times.

…the government announced sweeping changes on Thursday with the potential to radically shift the balance of power from workers to employers. …an invigorated France is considered critical to the survival of a European Union that is finally showing signs of revival after a lost decade. …Economists in France and across Europe expressed optimism about the new law… France has stagnated for years under chronically elevated unemployment and slow growth. The country’s strong worker protections and expensive benefits have been blamed by some for being at least partly at the root of the problem.

Wow, it must be bad if even the NYT is acknowledging that government is causing the economy to stutter.

Amazingly, the story even admits that economic liberalization is the right way to get more job creation.

Germany crossed that Rubicon in the 1990s under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. …Roughly 15 years ago, “France and Germany had economies that were more or less comparable, and that ceased to be the case because the Germans wisely did micro-reforms and the French did not,” said Sebastian Mallaby, senior fellow for international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations. So the French ended up with “high unemployment, which fed populism, and getting out of that trap is vital

For what it’s worth, I think the reference to German reforms is key.

Under a left-leaning government, Germany liberalized labor markets. The so-called Hartz reforms were a huge success, slashing the jobless rate by more than 50 percent.

I don’t know whether Macron’s reforms are as bold as what happened in Germany, but any movement in the right direction will create more employment.

P.S. If Macron wants to save France, he better deal with the tax system as well. The problems are nicely captured by two videos, one about how young people are fleeing the nation and another showing a Hollywood celebrity reacting when told about the tax burden.

P.P.S. Whenever I give a speech in France, I ask the audience whether their government (which consumes for the half of economic output) gives them more and better services than the Swiss government (which consumes about one-third of economic output). The answer is always an overwhelmingly no.

P.P.P.S. I (sort of) agreed with Paul Krugman in 2013 that there is a plot against France.

P.P.P.P.S. Last but not least, the French people occasionally do support good policy (and they’re willing to escape to America if things don’t get better).

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Can President Macron Save France?

Back in April, I looked at the candidates running for the French presidency and half-jokingly wondered which one would win the right to preside over the country’s decline.

But once the field was winnowed to two candidates, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, I wrote that voters should pick the socialist over the socialist. My title was sarcastic, but I was making a serious point that Marine Le Pen had a very statist platform, whereas I cited evidence that Macron had some sensible proposals.

Mr. Macron aims to rebalance the economy by cutting 120,000 public sector jobs, streamlining the pension system and dropping state spending back to 52 percent of G.D.P. Mr. Macron leads an emerging centrist consensus that recognizes that…the main obstacle retarding France’s economy is its attachment to a welfare state culture of…generous benefits. …Mr. Macron…once said that stifling taxes threaten to turn France into “Cuba without the sun”.

Indeed, in addition to the reforms listed in the Macron has proposed to lower France’s corporate tax rate to 25 percent, and he also want to liberalize labor markets.

All of which seems rather surreal. After all, Macron was a minister in the failed socialist government of Francois Hollande, so who would have thought that we would be the one to lead an effort to shrink the burden of government?

Yet consider the fiscal agenda President Macron is pushing.

France’s 2018 budget will focus on cutting taxes to boost economic activity as the government seeks to cement its support among the business community, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said. …Philippe told RTL Radio on Wednesday he wants to lower levies that “hurt the competitiveness of our country.” Government ministries this week received letters setting out their spending limits for 2018. President Emmanuel Macron is seeking cuts of 20 billion euros ($23 billion) and tax reductions of 11 billion euros next year… “We have to get out of the spiral of public spending,” government spokesman Christophe Castaner said in a separate interview on France Inter. “France has been addicted to ever increasing spending, paid for by taxes.”

Wow. I wish the Republicans in Washington were as sensible as these French socialists (actually, since they created a new party, it would be more accurate to say they are former socialists).

But there is precedent for this kind of surprise. It was the left-wing parties that started the process of pro-market reforms in Australia and New Zealand. And it was a Social Democrat government in Germany that enacted the labor-market reforms that have been so beneficial for that nation.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that French voters may have buyer’s regret.

The Wall Street Journal recently opined on this topic.

…the question isn’t whether Emmanuel Macron can save France. The question is whether France can save itself. Voters have the best chance in a generation to revive an economy in decline, yet they seem to quail at the critical moment. …voters are having second thoughts about economic reform. Mr. Macron’s approval started falling in July after he announced plans to cut housing benefits—by €5 a month for each recipient. Feminists are in arms over his plan to reduce the government’s women’s-rights budget to €20 million ($23.6 million) from €30 million. That’s before he gets to the labor reforms that will dominate the autumn.

Shifting from the editorial page, the WSJ has a report on the growing opposition to reform.

As Emmanuel Macron sets out to shake up France’s rigid labor market, the young president is losing the public support he may need to weather protests by the country’s powerful unions. …Mr. Macron will have to tread carefully in rolling out his labor reforms in September. For months, the 39-year-old president has been in talks with powerful labor unions in a bid to contain planned street protests. Now the prospect is growing that the ranks of those demonstrations could swell with students, retirees and other segments of French society… Mr. Macron’s government wants to make it easier for French firms to hire and fire workers. …The hard-left General Confederation of Labor, France’s most militant union, is already calling for strikes and demonstrations.

It’s not surprising, of course, to see opposition from those seeking to protect their privileges.

Though it theoretically shouldn’t matter since Macron’s party has a huge majority in the French Assembly.

That being said, politicians do have a habit of buckling when faced with voter unrest.

And Macron is committing some unforced errors, as reported by the U.K.-based Telegraph.

Emmanuel Macron spent €26,000 (£24,000) on makeup during his first three months as president of France, it has emerged. …Le Point reported that his personal makeup artist – referred to only as Natacha M – put in two bills, one for €10,000 and another for €16,000.The Elysee Palace defended the high fee saying: “We called in a contracter as a matter of urgency”. The same makeup artist also applied foundation to Mr Macron during his presidential campaign. Aides said that spending on makeup would be “significantly reduced”. …Le Point put the overall figure for Mr Hollande’s makeup at €30,000 per quarter. Nicolas Sarkozy, meanwhile, paid a whopping €8,000 per month for his, according to Vanity Fair.

Since it appears that these costs are borne by taxpayers, this is all rather depressing.

Macron, however, at least can claim that he’s not the most frivolous with other people’s money. Monsieur Hollande won the prize for waste when you add his hairdresser to the equation.

…all these sums pale into comparison with the £99,000 Mr Hollande paid his personal barber. The huge amount sparked accusations of “shampoo Socialism”. …The hairdresser, Olivier Benhamou, was hired to work at the Elysée Palace in 2012 for the duration of Mr Hollande’s five-year term.  Mr Benhamou also reportedly enjoyed a housing allowance and family benefits.

As I wrote about this last year and suggested that this narcissistic waste made Hollande eligible to win the “Politician of the Year” contest.

But let’s shift back to the serious issue of economic liberalization.

To be blunt, France’s economy is suffocating from statism. I’m not even sure what’s the biggest problem.

• Is it bloated public sector that consumes more than half of the economy’s output?
• Is it a tax system that is so onerous that households sometimes pay more than 100 percent of their income to government?
• Is it cossetted bureaucrats, symbolized by the functionary with a car and driver who nonetheless still racked up giant taxi expenses?
• Is it class-warfare policies that target the rich but wind up hurting the middle class?

The answer is “all of the above,” with is why France desperately needs pro-market reform.

We’ll learn later this year whether Macron can save his country.

P.S. The story that tells you everything you need to know about France was the poll last decade revealing that more than half the population would flee to America if they had the opportunity.

P.P.S. If it wasn’t for France, we never would have had the opportunity to enjoy this very clever and amusing Scott Stantis cartoon.

P.P.P.S. Or watch this rather revealing Will Smith interview about French taxation.

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