I haven't commented yet on the official death of the CPE, nor on the Italian elections, because I think that sometimes it is a good thing to think before writing, and as a blogger with no deadline to meet I can do precisely that. However the disadvantage is that I get to repeat the excellent commentary made by others such as the NY Sun's Daniel Johnson and fellow bloggers at EURSOC and the EUReferendum, on the other hand I can also be inspired by them and hence I hope this post is more inspiration that mindless repetition.
The NY Sun's article is very good in many ways but yet it seems to be is that of the outsider looking in and judging by his preconceived biases. In particular, while I agree that radical Islam is likely to be a short to medium term beneficiary of these changes I think that radical Islam is no more than a symptom of the malaise in both nations. Where Mr Johnson absolutely nails it though is in this bit:
That trial of strength [about the CPE - ed] was no longer mainly about the hiring and firing of young employees, which the government wanted to make easier and the unions opposed.The conflict was about a much more fundamental question: Who has the right to exercise authority in a democratic society? That question leads directly to another: Who has a monopoly on violence? The French state has now given its answer to both: "Not us."
In other words: Might is right. The authority of the institutions of the French state has been irreparably weakened, just as it was during the 1950s, when it nearly succumbed to a military coup. The political system may not survive its next big test. And Jacques Chirac may yet find his niche in the history books - as the gravedigger of the Fifth Republic.
I agree that what we are seeing here could well be the death of the fifth republic and that we may well therefore see turmoil similar to that of the late 1950s before the arrival of the sixth (however I am positive that it will not be the first caliphate), but there is a writing off of France and the (native) French in the article that I flat out do not see. Indeed, despite the large protests, I don't think that many French youths are truly in love with the idea of being a fonctionaire (as Charles Krauthammer claims in Time): The problem is, IMO, more simple - they don't see a rewarding alternative. If I were a Frenchman I'd probably want to be one - how can you argue against all the perks? - especially given that the government effectively punishes anyone who successfully takes a risk and grows his business beyond the level of a couple of shops or so.
Italy is worse - Berlusconi has consistently failed to understand that "what's good for Berlusconi is good for Italy" is flat out untrue. He has spent much legislative effort shoehornig through parliament bills that protect his companies and his person from legal challenge. As a result he has failed to do anything about the real problems facing Italy - long term this is the fertility crisis, shorter term it is the reform of the tax, benefit and pension schemes that make anyone who can do work on the black - and any attempts he has made at reform have made Vile Pin's CPE look like radical reform. As with Vile Pin, but with even less excuse since he won an election on this platform, Berluscono has failed to make the reforms needed for Italy to thrive.
There is however a commonality and it is why I have the heading I do for this post. It is clear to me (for further examples see Germany, Netherlands and many other European states) that tinkering with the European welfare state is not going to work. Both Vile Pin and Berlusconi attempted reform as a series of hesitant steps and the problem is that while it may indeed reduce the pain this trategy also drastically reduces the gain. Hence no one is willing to come out in favour of the reform because the benefits are simply not clear. Many people criticised the shock therapies meted out the former communist Eastern Europe but a decade or more on these states are in rude economic health and generally speaking flourishing, indeed the correlation between how much they are flourishing and how much shock therapy they took is pretty damn close to 1. In Western Europe we have fewer examples of shock therapy but Thatcherite Britain is a fairly outstanding example. Mrs Thatcher radically reformed government and changed the attitude of Britain and the coutnry has been the healthy man of Europe ever since.
The only way to reform a European country is to plan for a big bang change. It also means getting your strategy right. Thatcher made sure the police were on her side, made sure she had at least a large chunk of the media on her side and made sure that she had sorted out alternative supplies before she took on the most obstreporous unions. Once she had defeated them defeat of the rest was more or less certain. One reason why Berlusconi lost my respect was that he was unable to capitalize on his control of most of the Italian media to get his message across.
I sincerely hope that Sarko is working on the strategy to do the Thatcher thing...