The markets are down, but something’s up in France:
France’s economy has been less hard hit than many. Its GDP is expected to shrink by 3% this year, according to the IMF, against 4.1% in Britain, 4.4% in Italy and 5.6% in Germany…
The French government has not yet had to rescue any big French bank from collapse, let alone nationalize one…
To French ears, all this is rather pleasing. Mr Sarkozy hailed the G20 London summit as the end of the Anglo-Saxon model of capitalism. Le Monde, a leading daily, wrote: “In the crisis, the French model, formerly knocked, finds favour once more.”
Relatively speaking, things are going pretty well. A handful of big problems undoubtedly still fester (high unemployment in the immigrant-heavy suburbs being the worst, probably), but the young in France seem uncharacteristically optimistic. Come to think of it, it seems like this Sarkozy-era mentality is becoming rather…individualistic…non? Two recent French hits make the point perfectly:
“Baby Baby Baby” by Make The Girl Dance
“Je Veux Te Voir” by Yelle
For our non-French readers, here’s a lyric sampling from each. Make the Girl Dance:
I want your Mom’s AMEX Black
I want your dad’s car
I want to go out with your friends
i’ll wear my best underwear
i want a little hot action
i’d love for you to watch but not to touchI want to count without my fingers
I want yours somewhere nice
I dont want to take the steps
Actually, you’ll be carrying me
I only want myself in photos
I want to pose for Yves St. Laurent
Yelle:
I want to see you
In a p*rno film
In action with your c**k
Shape potatoes or fries
To find out
About your anatomy……it’s you who I want to see
Who I want to see tonight
Be ridiculed by a girl who raps better than you
Trash-fuzz electropop aside, the France of Chirac—cynical, morose, and gray—is very much dead. Granted, the French invented individualism to characterize post-Revolutionary dissenters. The history is there. But since the start of the Cold War, individualism has been seen as truly negative, a selfish tendency left mostly to (North) Americans. Indeed, it was the perfect foil to use against the West during France’s years of fence-riding between the NATO countries (whom they would eventually join) and the USSR (who they—Sartre, that is—sympathized with, at least for the first five years). The French are used to the role.
But the Cold War’s over. France’s first lady is a former model. Paris is riding high. And as the countries of Western Europe stand together yet apart from responsibility for the world financial crisis, young France stands alone, saying “I want”. Will their tone change when the world’s spirits finally brighten?
14 May 2009
the €UROWONK 
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