“Will Emmanuel Macron stay just like the French Gerhard Schröder? » | EUROtoday

Lhe secret hope of all heads of state is that the view of the historian is much less extreme than that of the journalist. What judgment will we make on the Macron years in twenty years? Will the youngest French president stay just like the “French Gerhard Schröder” – the one earlier than the Russian disaster? Or just like the “hexagonal Tony Blair” – the one earlier than the conflict in Iraq?

In 2017, the previous advisor to François Hollande certainly aspired to be this French model of the social-democratic reformer, twenty years after his elders. Authors of the “third way” manifesto in 1999, which Lionel Jospin had refused to signal, they have been retrospectively credited with nice financial successes.

Time required, Emmanuel Macron exchanged the lexicon of the French second left for extra trendy formulation of emancipation or the battle in opposition to rents. But the matrix of “surpassing” remained: that of a socialism of provide primarily based on a coverage of competitiveness – reforms of the labor market and pensions, discount of taxes and pro-business discourse recognizing the fact of globalization. Abandoning, over time, the left markers.

The query of its legacy is undoubtedly a bit of early, however allow us to begin from the precept that the good achievements of Macronism are behind us moderately than forward. Economically, the outcomes are moderately flattering. French and international enterprise leaders readily welcome the successive labor market reforms. Mass unemployment is actually now not a topic in France. Apprenticeship has regained its the Aristocracy – definitely, with loads of public cash. With equal development, France is now creating extra jobs than prior to now. Factories have stopped leaving the territory, even when they don’t seem to be but returning. The nation escaped recession, when Germany was declining. And the picture of France has modified.

Outdated concepts

However, the shock remedy imagined by Emmanuel Macron has nothing to check with that inflicted by Chancellor Gerhard Schröder on a Germany then offered as “the sick man of Europe”. Brutal, the Hartz reforms – 4 legal guidelines between 2003 and 2005 – divided by three the period of unemployment insurance coverage compensation, forcing the long-term unemployed into the help system, and created the well-known paid “minijobs”. a number of hundred euros, which boosts employment figures concurrently precariousness and inequalities.

Although related in philosophy since they prioritize the return to work over the standard of employment, the French reforms are a toned down model, which we will undoubtedly welcome. The risk for corporations to deviate from sector agreements, offered as an element of success throughout the Rhine, was actually deserted after having been talked about on the French aspect. And when Chancellor Schröder sacrificed twenty million retirees by freezing their pensions in 2003, calling for wage moderation in companies, Emmanuel Macron selected, quite the opposite, to protect an voters of retirees who’re loyal to him, indexing pensions, minimal wage and social Security advantages.

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