A French public figure argues that France must revitalize its industry, employment, and competitiveness to resolve social crises, emphasizing the need for reforms, reindustrialization, and political planning.
Since mid-October, the country has been swept by protests. On October 17, between 550,000 and 800,000 people marched against the high cost of living. On November 5, an interprofessional strike again mobilized hundreds of thousands of participants from labor unions to high school students, demanding higher wages and better public services. Behind this anger lies a stark realization: France can no longer finance its social model.
Pierre Danon, treasurer of the Republicans party, stressed the importance of reforms to reduce public spending in order to better finance the French social model.
"The French social model, which we are all proud of and which we hold dear, is truly in difficulty. We want to reduce spending. And to cut spending, there are a certain number of reforms that need to be carried out. The first is pension reform, because it is an enormous part of social spending and therefore of contributions. We also need to make sure that everyone in France gets back to work -- those who are on welfare, those who are unemployed. So a policy that is much more of an incentive to return to employment," he said.
Reindustrialization is the key to boosting employment, according to Frederic Souillot, general secretary of the French trade union confederation Workers' Force.
"Reindustrialization is the real issue. With industry, when you lose an industrial job, you immediately lose four directly induced jobs. Services, retail, logistics—right after that. So reindustrializing means, at the level of National Education, talking about career guidance again. How do we steer young people toward sectors that will grow, particularly those linked to industry, rather than toward sectors that will decline, linked to artificial intelligence or climate disruption?" he said.
Jean-Michel Blanquer, a cformer Minister of National Education, stressed the importance of political planning to resolve social crises facing France.
"So the societal project is to say that all our crises -- the demographic, housing, industrial, agricultural, ecological and a few other crises -- can find a solution by rethinking our space. And that is therefore a capacity for planning. So you have, under the heading of the art of politics, to make both short-term and long-term decisions that make sense in relation to one another," he said.
France should revitalize industry, employment, competitiveness to resolve social crises: expert
