France’s Economy Sick with Unemployment Fever

The new economy minister for France has declared the country to be ‘sick’ in response to the economic crisis plaguing the French people. He has appealed for immediate reforms to urgently tackle the soaring rates of unemployment in an economy that has remained stagnant for over six months.

Although the current stagnation is only six months old, the economy minister suggests that France has been suffering ill health for some years now as a result of mass unemployment. At this point, there seems to be no other option for the country, but to completely reform the economy.

The new economy minister for France has declared the country to be ‘sick’ in response to the economic crisis plaguing the French people. He has appealed for immediate reforms to urgently tackle the soaring rates of unemployment in an economy that has remained stagnant for over six months.

Although the current stagnation is only six months old, the economy minister suggests that France has been suffering ill health for some years now as a result of mass unemployment. At this point, there seems to be no other option for the country, but to completely reform the economy.

Lower taxes! Stop the socialized health care system! These are simple changes that could help France resurrect itself. But like New York and Illinois, their ideologies will prevent them from doing what needs to be done.

Not Impressive Numbers

France makes up the second biggest economy within the Eurozone; however it is struggling with a record-breaking level of unemployment. Today, the rate of unemployment stands at over 10%, and this is on top of the lack of recorded growth in the last two quarters. At the same time, Paris is attempting to reduce its public deficit, which is expected to be 4.4% of GDP in 2014. The number for public deficit is only expected to drop slightly in the coming year too, to 4.3%.

Paris has broken its promise to the European Union to lower the deficit to below 3% of GDP by 2015, pushing the estimated time frame back to 2017. The result is that France has been set on a collision course with Germany and Brussels.

Increasing Economic Problems

On top of its current economic issues, France has been hit by a political crisis after President Francois Hollande received record lows in opinion polls. A shock reshuffle of the cabinet was prompted in August to remove dissenters from the ranks. The unpopularity of the current government is largely due to a lack of economic results. And this is because this current President in France is set on attacking the rich. He is too irrational to realize that the rich employ the middle class!

But the French people voted for him; they have only themselves to blame.

Today, approximately 3,424,000 people in France are out of work, showing a boost in unemployment rates for the ninth consecutive month. The statistics released by the Labor ministry of the country indicated that between July and June of this year alone, the amount of jobless people went up by 26,000. The rise in unemployment has been hailed as yet another blow to the president, who had promised in his campaign to reduce the unemployment rate. INSEE or the National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies suggest that unemployment is going to stick around the 10.2% level.

Those are numbers only Nancy Pelosi will love. That is about the same as Los Angeles and Chicago.

Half Right but not Good Enough

In August of this year, the government was forced to slash its forecasts for growth in both this year and the next, stating that the data shown has only provided negative results for the country. The austerity measures that France has taken is only one sided because they have raised taxes when they should have done the opposite. It is fantastic that social services have been cut but they should have cut taxes too. But socialists do not believe in cutting taxes so France is in real trouble. Despite the fact that so many people are currently out of work:

* Retirement taxes have been raised

* Sales taxes have increased