Pave: I Can't Believe It's France! III

Le jour 158 de Sarko

Another installment* of amazing things said by an actual French person.

Today's featured actual French person is Christine Lagarde (née Lallouette), Minister of economy, finance and employment. Mdm. Lagarde is the sort of French person franchouilles disdain: accomplished,** hardworking, plain-spoken, and, much like her boss, America friendly. Pave has the personal assurance of WSJ editor John Fund himself that Mdm. Lagarde not only knows of Frédéric Bastiat, but unlike many a French finance minister, has read and understood him too. No small distinction considering modern French economics looks fondly backward to either Marx or Jean-Baptiste Colbert.

THE 'AMERICAN' REBOOTING FRANCE

PARIS October 17, 2007 (IHT) - [Christine Lagarde] declares in ringing Anglo-Saxon:

We are trying to change the psyche of the French people in relation to work.

But Lagarde, 51, tall and striking, is not known as "the American" for nothing. ... In an interview, Lagarde says that more than two decades at a U.S. corporation taught her:

The more hours you worked, the more hours you billed, the more profit you could generate for yourself and your firm. That was the mantra.

The equivalent mantra in the French bureaucracy might be: The fewer hours you work, the more vacation you take, the more time you have to grumble about the state of the universe, and the smarter you feel, especially compared to workaholic dingbats across the Atlantic with no time for boules.

So Lagarde, appointed four months ago by President Nicolas Sarkozy, is aware she faces a big challenge:

What was really striking to me when I came back from Chicago in 2005 was that the law on the 35-hour week had passed and been internalized by individuals and, I think, had produced disastrous effects.

What effects?

People did not really talk about their work. They talked about their long weekends.

... This revolution [reforming the French economy], she insists, must begin in the French head. Lagarde has become the anti-Descartes by declaring the French should think less to work more.

What has escaped my critics is that clearly before action, there must be thinking. But we have been splitting hairs and talking about the sex of angels for long enough. We know the solutions to all our evils. So let's roll up our sleeves.

Good luck, Mdm. la Ministre.

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* As you might imagine this is not an extensive series. First post here, second here.

** Forbes ranked her the 88th most powerful woman in the world for 2005, she was ranked #30 in 2006, and currently ranks #12.

PFFT (What is this?): Can you believe this gal? 4½ | Rayonnement français 4