“Paradox” is what the New York Times called France’s ability to attract more foreign investment than any country other than China and the US. A paradox because it shouldn’t. Investors should be scared off by labor laws, tax rates, the cost of labor, and mud-wrestling bouts over nationalizing some industrial plants. But turns out, multinational corporations pay practically no income taxes in France. And it has reached the boiling point.
Europe – France
The Socialist Heart Of France Spits Out Its First Victim
by Wolf Richter • • 4 Comments
The Alarming “Sense Of Pauperization” in France
by Wolf Richter • • 8 Comments
In France, 48% of the people considered themselves either living in poverty or on the way to living in poverty. The sobering survey results were released just ahead of the National Conference of the Fight against Poverty. A big conference, packed with top politicians. The government is taking it seriously. They will be looking for Band-Aids to cover the deep wounds of the private sector that is atrophying and shedding jobs.
Nationalizations Take Off In France
by Wolf Richter • • 12 Comments
Privatizing state-owned companies has been all the rage in France since the mid-nineties, by socialist and conservative governments alike. But the morass in the private sector has stopped that. Now nationalization is being brandished as a solution—again—though the state still owns a big chunk of the private sector. The dominoes are lined up. Last week it was ArcelorMittal. Today it’s one of the world’s largest shipyards.
Stimulating The Public Sector, Suffocating the Private Sector: A French Dichotomy
by Wolf Richter • • 6 Comments
Moody’s, when it stripped France off its AAA rating, had a laundry list of laments that were a reflection of the awful details seeping from every crack in France’s picturesque veneer: relentlessly rising unemployment, declining production and orders, collapsing automobile sales, plunging home sales…. You’d think France is in a depression. Yet, third quarter GDP edged up by 0.2%. What gives?
French Minister Whines: “Le French Bashing” Is Terrible
by Wolf Richter • • 4 Comments
Germany’s Fear And Desperation Leak Out
by Wolf Richter • • 20 Comments
A hullabaloo erupted between France and Germany that both are trying to silence to death: it seeped out that the German Finance Minister broached an unprecedented topic with Germany’s Council of Economic Experts. Could they produce a reform concept for the troubled French economy? It revealed a threat that terrorizes the German government.
Nationalizing Companies Is Part Of The French DNA
by Wolf Richter • • 6 Comments
In France, socialism isn’t a political movement that swept the elections this year, and it isn’t an economic philosophy that moved once again to the forefront, but it’s part of the DNA of much of the population. And it produces classic knee-jerk reactions to the current economic morass—such as the nationalization of tottering automaker Peugeot.
Desperate French Government Threatens To “Requisition” Vacant Buildings
by Wolf Richter • • 7 Comments
Prime Minister Ayrault made it official: the government would requisition vacant buildings regardless of who owned them and make them available to the homeless and the “badly housed.” In a few weeks, “an inventory” of buildings should be on his desk so that he could requisition the first properties “in January and February 2013.” A desperate move to halt the collapse of his numbers. And a broadside at investors.
Jérôme Kerviel Gets Slammed, Megabank Always Wins: This Is How Justice Is Done
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Jérôme Kerviel Gets Slammed, Megabank Always Wins: This Is How Justice Is Done
A French appeals court threw the book at Jérôme Kerviel who, in 2008, had been hung out to dry by his employer, French mega-bank Société Générale, for having—so alleged the bank—blown €4.9 billion in no time without its knowledge, using trick and device to conceal his gigantic trades for years. But now, Kerviel and his lawyer lambasted the proceedings as having been rigged from the outset.