11 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
"We need to respond in a strong and quick way to the unquestionable problems that many inhabitants of the deprived neighborhoods surrounding our cities are facing,"
I just love his on the ball thinking here. If ever an annual award for "head of state making a statement of the blindingly obvious" were to be given I think this one would be a serious contender.France could consider easing restrictions on certain highly regulated service industries and on business start-ups as part of a package to create jobs in poor suburbs, Thierry Breton, French finance minister, told the Financial Times on Thursday.
Although such a link disappears fairly swiftly. For example there is this:Mr Breton, ..., also said he did not expect foreign investors to be scared away: “They will see the disconnect between what is shown and what is real.”
Umm yeah whatever. Call me Mr Unreasonable but were I the possessor of oodles of loot that I wished to invest in business somewhere then a place where my investment is likely to go up in smoke is NOT going to be right up there in terms of attractiveness. And that ignores the red-tape burden.Among the initiatives being considered is an easing of regulations in the specially designated “zones franches”. Currently companies are encouraged to locate in these areas of high unemployment through a limited range of tax breaks. However, the Finance Ministry is considering a form of “positive economic discrimination” that would exempt companies from certain rules in place elsewhere.
These include relaxing professional qualifications on businesses such as hair salons and taxi companies, and increasing the level of state guarantees for business loans.
The ministry is also considering an increase of tax benefits and the elimination of restrictions on state-subsidised jobs.
So here I am - a hypothetical Mr Plutocrat - and I have a choice of where to invest my money. If I see some reason to look at France I have a choice of“We have put a lot of money into the suburbs over the past 20 years,” Mr Breton said. “But obviously it wasn’t enough. We need to work on how to create more jobs and growth in those areas.”
If you have spent bazillions and made things worse shouldn't you consider that maybe this is not in fact a problem that can be solved by throwing money at it?