Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Preface
- 1 The misunderstood French welfare state
- 2 Corporatist welfare states: the residue of the past, or the wave of the future?
- 3 The “treason of the intellectuals”: globalization as the big excuse for France's economic and social problems
- 4 France's break with socialism
- 5 Persisting inequalities
- 6 The protected people
- 7 The excluded: immigrants, youth, women
- 8 The French exception
- Appendix: Some major pieces of social legislation, France 1893–2003
- Notes
- Index
4 - France's break with socialism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Preface
- 1 The misunderstood French welfare state
- 2 Corporatist welfare states: the residue of the past, or the wave of the future?
- 3 The “treason of the intellectuals”: globalization as the big excuse for France's economic and social problems
- 4 France's break with socialism
- 5 Persisting inequalities
- 6 The protected people
- 7 The excluded: immigrants, youth, women
- 8 The French exception
- Appendix: Some major pieces of social legislation, France 1893–2003
- Notes
- Index
Summary
A country like ours, with 1,500,000 unemployed, ceases to be a free country.
Presidential candidate François Mitterrand, in a televised address to the nation, late 1980 (when he left office in 1995, there were 3.5 million unemployed).If you are elected, unemployment will rise due to the measures you will take and which will weigh down upon businesses.
President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, to Mitterrand, television debate, 5 May 1981.Between 1981 and 1995, the Socialist President, François Mitterrand, and his various governments ruled except for two periods when the Right dominated the legislature, during 1986 to 1988 (when Jacques Chirac served as Prime Minister), and during 1993 to 1995 (when Edouard Balladur was Prime Minister). President Chirac took power in 1995, and ruled with Prime Minister Alain Juppé until 1997. The Left, led by Lionel Jospin, regained the prime minister's office during 1997. Since 2002, Prime Minister Raffarin has ruled with a large conservative legislative majority.
Although the Socialists ruled France for fifteen years between 1981 and 2002, it would be too simple to lay the blame for France's economic problems solely on their doorstep. When Chirac was Prime Minister in 1986 to 1988, unemployment hovered at around 10%. Chirac's policies to remedy this situation were not substantially different than those of Prime Minister Fabius before him. Both leaders attempted to relieve some of the barriers to private sector expansion but they also raised taxes in order to pay (partially) for more social spending.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- France in CrisisWelfare, Inequality, and Globalization since 1980, pp. 88 - 126Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004