By NICOLAS BAVEREZ
PARIS -- This will be the year that the decline of France came home to the French. After the collapse of the giant strikes of 1995, after the civic crash of 2002 that saw the far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen get through to the second round of the presidential elections, the failure of the May 29 referendum on the EU constitution and of Paris's bid last month for the 2012 Olympic Games finally tore the last shreds of an illusion and revealed France as the sick man among the world's developed democracies.The country is in a pre-revolutionary situation. Yet at the same time, considering the weakness of its ruling class, France could find a way to break out of its doldrums. For a change, the French people rather than their overweening State could lead the way in forcing on the country a shock therapy with little risk of political extremisms and social violence.
Traditionally, revolutions happen when a rift develops between the political elite and the people at a time of deep economic and social crisis, when the people feel humiliated and are in despair. The France of 2005 exhibits all these symptoms. The divorce between the people and the ruling classes is clearer by the day, seen not only in the country's politics but in its media and business. The current president of the Republic, Jacques Chirac, is universally laughed at. His opportunism is transparent, as are his many failures, despite which no credible political alternative has emerged on the left.
The economic ailments are also plain to see. Growth is stuck at 1.5% per year while productivity and purchase power rise less than 1% yearly. Public debt is exploding from 58% to 68% of GDP between 2002 and 2007. The nanny-state saddles France with a €15 billion annual deficit, on average. Add to that the brain drain and the expatriation of skills and businesses that flee a confiscatory fiscal and social system. France is thus caught between a dwindling productive base and soaring collective costs. No wonder that the country has mass unemployment that has been affecting more than 10% of the population for the last quarter of the century (23.5 % among the youth), 15% of the population living below the poverty level (including 1 million children), a steady decline in social mobility since the 1990's and the state's chronic failure in integrating the growing and restless immigrant population.
In response, France's leaders indulge in demagogy, deny reality and turn others' successes into excuses for their failure to reform. This feeds the nihilism and anger of the French, who are well aware that their nation's losing prestige and influence in a way not seen since the agonizing end of the IVth Republic in 1956-58. So anything is now possible, including political violence, but also the preparation of a radical change at the next presidential election in 2007.
These next two years inevitably will be lost, since a weak president won't be able to reform. We're already seeing the French government and people in a purely defensive posture, focused only on maintaining the status quo. The government is built around Dominique de Villepin, prime minister in name only, and Nicolas Sarkozy, president in the making. Mr. Chirac put them together in the sterile hope that this division would give him more leverage to write his own ticket in two years time.
The more the country sinks into crisis, the less it is capable of coming up with a clear vision for the future. That's especially true with economic policy, which is neither socialist nor liberal but merely schizophrenic and Malthusian. So France rails against unemployment but sanctions the "social model" that causes it; calls for reform of the State yet continues to increase public expenditures (55% of GDP) and the number of civil servants (5 million, or 20% of the working population); signs on to the rules of the EU and euro yet repeatedly breaks them, invoking a French exception, and indulges in protectionism.
For all that, the years to come will be decisive. From difficult, the situation could become catastrophic if -- as happened in 1995 and 2002 -- the 2007 election turns into yet another aborted attempt at modernization. Capital, business and skills will continue to flee, and the pauperization of France will accelerate. A full-blown economic meltdown in France would be a major crisis for the euro zone, as well. But presidential elections in the Vth Republic are intended to be a turning point when the people choose not only a president but a destiny for the nation.
The French have two years now to reconcile themselves to the realities of the 21st century and begin to confront their problems rather than hide from them. It will not be easy, but it will be necessary, to admit that they, and no one else, not "Europe" or globalization, are responsible for the decline of their country. As in 1958, the next election could bring a breakthrough. This modernization will need to be accompanied by an overhaul of institutions and economic and social models. Notions of work need to change, as well as attitudes to Europe. France must re-examine its conflicting and ambiguous relationship with liberty and modernity.
This country is upside down, as were the U.S. and Great Britain in the seventies, with major assets broken to pieces by a clogged political system and a vacuous economic and social model. In the absence of any direct outside threat or pressures linked to military operations, such as the colonial wars of the 1950s, it is up to the French alone to make a decision. Freed from the illusions of French might and finally convinced that their country is in deep crisis and come to accept that a cult of status quo doesn't amount to a strategy but to failure and impotence. The 1960s are over, the French are coming to realize. This country needs to adjust, to move beyond conservatism and fear, and replace disillusion with hope.
Mr. Baverez, an economist, is the author, most recently, of "La France Qui Tombe" (France In Decline), out from Perrin in 2003. This essay was translated from the French by Henri Fezensac.