Showing posts with label France. Show all posts
Showing posts with label France. Show all posts
Multiculturalism has failed, says French president
"My answer is clearly yes, it is a failure," he said in a television interview when asked about the policy which advocates that host societies welcome and foster distinct cultural and religious immigrant groups. "Of course we must all respect differences, but we do not want... a society where communities coexist side by side. If you come to France, you accept to melt into a single community, which is the national community, and if you do not want to accept that, you cannot be welcome in France," the right-wing president said.
Read More...
France’s Solar Bubble Pops
Two years ago, the National Assembly adopted one of those solar “feed-in tariffs” — a cute misnomer for a mandate that forces utilities to buy expensive renewable electricity at ridiculously high prices. Flush with visions for the solar future, the legislature set the price at 546 euros per megawatt-hour, almost ten times the market price of 55 euros that customers pay for electricity from other sources. Electricitie de France (EDF), the national utility, was obligated to buy from all comers, covering the costs with a special levy on other customers.
The result was an avalanche of expensive rooftop projects. Whereas EDF had received only 7,100 applications a year for such connections before 2008, by last December it was fielding 3,000 per day. “We didn’t see it coming,” French lawmaker Francois-Michel Gonnog told Bloomberg News. “What is in the pipeline this year is unimaginable. Farmers were being told they could put panels on hangars and get rid of their cows.” The government cut the price support twice last year but was finally forced to impose a three-month suspension in December.
Read More...
Obama: France is our Strongest Friend and Ally?
“We don’t have a stronger friend and stronger ally than Nicolas Sarkozy, and the French people,” Obama said while seated next to the French president.
To be fair, it could just be a case of inflated praise regularly poured on visiting dignitaries. While we may not have a “stronger” ally, maybe all our allies are equally as strong. But that’s not how some in Britain are interpreting the comment.
“Quite what the French have done to merit this kind of high praise from the US president is difficult to fathom, and if the White House means what it says this represents an extraordinary sea change in US foreign policy,” political analyst Nile Gardiner writes in the Telegraph. “Nicolas Sarkozy is a distinctly more pro-American president than any of his predecessors, and has been an important ally over issues such as Iran and the War on Terror. But to suggest that Paris and not London is Washington’s strongest partner is simply ludicrous.”
Read More...
To heck with austerity, say the French
The money isn't there, but no matter:
They don't want to retire two (count 'em, two!) years later.
Americans arriving in Paris these days will notice that France's planes, trains and automobiles are all being slowed or stopped by nationwide protests over President Nicolas Sarkozy's proposal to raise the retirement age by ... all of two years. Protesters are blockading refineries; truckers clog the roads, and yesterday air-traffic controllers walked off the job. Hundreds of schools around the country are closed, leaving students free to declare their solidarity with pensioners.
Sarkozy's reform is intended to shore up France's public pension system, which faces a $45 billion shortfall. But this modest reform, which has passed the lower house and is scheduled for a vote in the Senate this week, is merely a downpayment on France's unfunded liabilities.
Read More...
