http://socialjusticefirst.com/2012/05/05/french-elections-missing-the-big-picture/
On Sunday May 6th, 2012, French voters chose François Hollande as their president for the coming five years. Voters responded strongly to campaign promises made on transparency, proportional representation, and competence-related issues.
Both the left-wing favorite, François Hollande, and the right-wing incumbent, Nicolas Sarkozy, promised higher taxes and controlled public spending. Both candidates aim to bring the public deficit back to equilibrium, disagreeing only on the time-frame. Both mostly refrained from costly, last-minute promises to rally the undecided. According to the pro-business think-tank Institut de l’entreprise, both programs are underfunded by a similar amount, €11bn to €12bn.
Their difference on economic matters seems largely limited to their plans for Europe: Mr Hollande wants to renegotiate the European Fiscal Stability Treaty, so it also promotes growth and not just government austerity, which is enough to make him “rather dangerous” in the eyes of the Economist. As the Financial Times’ Chief political commentator Philip Stephens rightly puts it, there’s no reason to fret:
The influential Economist has declared on its front cover that Mr Hollande is “dangerous” – though, being British, it did add a qualifying “rather” to this disobliging epithet. The would-be president, the magazine observed, “genuinely believes in the need to create a fairer society”. Well, what could be more dangerous than that?
The influential Economist has declared on its front cover that Mr Hollande is “dangerous” – though, being British, it did add a qualifying “rather” to this disobliging epithet. The would-be president, the magazine observed, “genuinely believes in the need to create a fairer society”. Well, what could be more dangerous than that?
Be that as it may, Mr Hollande’s campaign has been soft-spoken in therms of social and economic justice rhetoric. Mr Sarkozy, on his side, has argued about the impossibility to renegotiate a signed treaty – shortly before threatening to suspend the Schengen agreement if nothing was done to fix “leaky Europe”. Mr Hollande, on the other hand, claims that other leaders in Europe are looking forward to his election, and that lines are already moving after ECB president Mario Draghi called for a growth compact alongside the fiscal compact.
Draghi, of course, is thinking of structural reforms promoting flexibility and mobility in the labour market, where Mr Hollande’s growth plans mostly entail increased investment, financed by eurobonds.
In fact, BBC has reported that far from the being economically "rather dangerous", Hollande's policies will not make have the negative effect on growth that many in the media are trumpeting.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9719000/9719327.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9719000/9719327.stm
What the Real Story is:
What is perhaps bigger news is the ideological shift across Europe as European voters reject austerity and pro-financial sector economic agendas in favor of parties backing pro-growth economic policies. Almost simultaneously, there have been electoral shifts in Greece, France, and Germany, while the Dutch government fell over the austerity issue.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/05/07/152177839/seismic-shift-in-europe-after-french-and-greek-electionshttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18048942
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Francois Cocquemas holds a Master degree in finance from Sciences Po Paris and a joint Master degree in economics and public policy from Ecole Polytechnique, ENSAE and Sciences Po. He is currently doing a PhD in finance at EDHEC Business School (École des Hautes Etudes Commerciales du Nord).
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