Pave: Unabashed Mooch

Le jour 41 de Sarko

FRANCE TO GET FIRST CASH
FROM EU GLOBALISATION FUND

BRUSSELS June 25, 2007 (AFP) - The European Commission on Monday approved the first two payments of cash from a new EU fund aimed at cushioning the impact of globalisation.

Small companies that supply French car makers Peugeot-Citroen and Renault will receive 3.8 million euros (5.1 million dollars) to help "workers made redundant due to company failures in a climate of changing global trade patterns," the EU executive said.

Is it just us, or does the propriety -- and the priority -- of a French begging bowl strike you as unseemly? If one still believes France sovereign and a thing apart from the EU, well, this is tantamount foreign aid.

With a GDP of USD $1.891 trillion, France is the seventh largest economy in the world, the third largest in Europa. Yet, she cannot scrape up couch change to bootstrap her own.

And just how did France muscle her way to the very front of the line? Why not needy Slovakia with 10.2% unemployment and 1/20th the GDP of France (59th)? Or Greece with 9.2% unemployment and roughly 1/7th the GDP (38th) of France?

We, of course, mock France. [Slight pause.] It is what we do. But we had no idea France was so destitute as to need development aid.

If you are more familiar than the AFP with the circumstances of this handout, do tell. We are ever so curious.

PFFT (What is this?): France first 5 | Gimme 2 | Rayonnement français 0