Bit of a kerfuffle on the other side of “La Manche”, Possums. The short-lived premiership of Michel Barnier came crashing, leaving Emmanuel Macron with a massive headache. Oh, mon Dieu, quelle horreur!
What happened? Well, Macron thought he’d outfox his opponents by calling a snap parliamentary election back in June, which rather predictably backfired quite badly. You see, rather than boosting his support base he ended up with insufficient numbers to form a majority government. Very vexing, so it is for the poor chap!
Then Michel Barnier, that infamous EU Brexit negotiator who failed to get the better of David Frost, got anointed as PM of a minority government. The bleep finally hit the fan when Barnier couldn’t get his budget through the Assembly, instead resorting to presidential decree to ram it through without a vote. That didn’t end well!
Enraged, opposition parties from the right and the left joined forces in a vote of no confidence and the hapless Barnier was ousted. This has done serious damage to Macron, lame duck as he is anyway, and the French have a lingering political crisis on their hands.
The state of the public finances in France are so dire that their debt sits at 110% of GDP. Their budget deficit is equalling shocking and is currently hovering at 6.1%, which corresponds to an upward revision from a previously estimated 4.4%. To put their deficit gap into a more understandable context of actual percentage versus that originally estimated it represents nearly one third or about 30% higher than originally forecast.
If all this statistical mumbo jumbo is translated into English, that means that the national debt burden resting on the shoulders of each French citizen is, well, massive. Then, of course, you must factor in their membership financial obligations to the EU, whilst also bearing in mind that they’re the second largest member state economy after Germany, which is also in crisis. So, what does all this mean? Simply put, they’re all bleeped!
France and Germany have copped a dose of the “Galloping Habdabs”, which sickeningly reverberates into the rest of Europe and beyond, including here in Blighty. The EU is technically bankrupt, which means member states are on the hook for the financial fallout, extending to us as well in no small measure. Do you see where I’m going with this, Possums?
If we were still members of that profligate monument to quasi state sponsored greed and excess, then we woulld be exposed to settling the debt pile at some point. As things stand our previous membership carries with it a significant debt burden already.
We have enough of our own problems with this incompetent bunch of muppets in government here without events in the EU adding to our woes. And Two-Tier and the buffoon at the foreign office want to align more closely with them? As Frankie Howerd would say “Not on your nelly”!
The common-sense approach to our predicament, for example, ought to be guided by how NOT to do things in the same way as the French. The welfare system in France is completely unsustainable at current levels and has been for some time. Cook the books all you want but the debt bubble eventually bursts, and the time comes when the piper must be paid.
Michel Barnier was never going to get his budget through parliament. The French obsession with welfare and other social benefits is such that it is seen almost like the Holy Grail that defines modern day France, so the sharp tax increases and cost cutting desperately needed were doomed to failure from the outset.
Now, you would have thought that anyone with an ounce of nous (that’s an English word for sensible, not the French for “we”, Possums) would rightly conclude anything similar to the French system here was a non-starter. That means that the tax base must hold sufficient capacity to support wide ranging benefits to coddle our people in comfort, and all of which costs a lot of money and employ lots of people.
Tax revenue provides the source and must contribute to the fiscality as efficiently as possible. Since Labour assumed power back in July, we have witnessed one fiscal disaster after another. They simply don’t seem to understand basic arithmetic; they certainly don’t understand the meaning of incentive; and they’re totally clueless when it comes to managing money except for when it comes to spending it.
The French will survive this, naturellement, since history can serve as a wonderful learning tool. It’s such a pity that this lot here keep repeating the same mistakes made in the past and expecting a different result.
We’re the mugs wot get nobbled, but the government and their cronies get to be nice and snug. Warm and content this Christmas whilst our pensioners suffer, these bleeps overindulgently lay waste to what’s left of a proud nation who were the envy of the civilized world at one time.
