by Amir Taheri
Having virtually no government hasn't stopped the French tradition of anti-government riots either. We have had three in the last two months and will have another next week, even if a sixth prime minister is found.
Without falling for anarchist fantasies, one might ask what governments, at least in Western democracies, do.
The main thing they do is to take your money and spend it on your behalf the way they wish, including social bribes to their segments of the electorate.
After two years of no real government, France is no worse than it was before the current "existential crisis" began.
Needless to say, the widest choice of restaurants in the world continues to offer delicious food.
Having virtually no government hasn't stopped the French tradition of anti-government riots either. We have had three in the last two months and will have another next week, even if a sixth prime minister is found. Who cares if there is no government; we must assert our Frenchness by rioting against the government.
If there is no budget, the 2025 budget will be extended for 2026. Then what happens?
To start with, there would be no new taxes, a relief to a society crushed by taxation. There would also be no new rules and regulations in the name of environmental, social and solidarity concerns, not to mention alternative lifestyles or compensation for real or imaginary victims. A useless but costly referendum in New Caledonia will also be scrapped.
The following could have appeared in the small-ads section of one of the free newspapers distributed in the Paris Metro: "Desperately seeking a Prime Minister, contact Marianne."
Marianne is the fictive damsel who serves as a symbol of the French Republic, in the form of statuettes at town halls and on postage stamps.
Marianne's urgent demand is prompted by the resignation of Sébastien Lecornu, the fifth prime minister named by President Emmanuel Macron in just two years. (Lecornu was reappointed on October 10.)
Lecornu's government set a historic global record of short-livedness by lasting just 820 minutes.
The pattern established in the past two years shows that finding a prime minister is more and more difficult, as no one wants to be PM while everyone dreams of becoming president.
And even if a new stopgap PM is found before this column appears, it is not certain he or she would do any better than his or her five immediate predecessors.
The root cause of the problem is that France's Fifth Republic was designed as a monarchy disguised as a republic and thus vulnerable to the challenges of both systems.
In it, if the president holds a majority in the National Assembly, he could become the envy of any of the kings of bygone days. Without controlling the parliament, however, he is reduced to a costly décor and can even become embarrassing.
The French media has covered the current situation with a mixture of hysteria and resignation. Words such as "crisis" and phrases such as "existential threat" are bandied about by eggheads on the small screen, pundits in newspapers and politologues from provincial academies.
We spent almost two days trying to gauge the public response by talking at random to the so-called "man-in-the-street" in various Parisian arrondissements.
What we did was not an opinion poll but nevertheless came as a surprise.
Almost everyone we talked to appeared to be relaxed about what one shopkeeper described as "the childish quarrels of politicians."
A senior civil servant at the Ministry of Agriculture went further by asserting that "the sky hasn't fallen yet, has it?"
A partner in a consulting firm called it "commedia dell'arte, French style."
At the end of our unscientific investigation, we were haunted by this question: What if a period without a formal government does as much good to a bloated political system as a spell of dieting to an obese man?
Without falling for anarchist fantasies, one might ask what governments, at least in Western democracies, do.
The main thing they do is to take your money and spend it on your behalf the way they wish, including social bribes to their segments of the electorate.
The Robin Hood method, now a general pattern, was not always so massively applied.
During the Victorian Era, when England and Western Europe, thanks to the Industrial Revolution, enjoyed the fastest economic growth in history, the state controlled around six percent of gross domestic product (GDP), compared to an average of 55 percent today.
Even during the Napoleonic Wars, that figure didn't exceed 12 percent.
In those days, the balance of power between state and society was mostly in favor of the latter. Most of the 3,000 or so inventions that shaped the modern world came from private individuals and groups with no state subsidies.
Back to France today: The country hasn't had an effective government for two years.
Yet it has continued to enjoy decent economic growth, an unemployment rate comparable to the rest of the industrialized world, and inflation lower than in Britain, not to mention Turkey or Iran.
After two years of no real government, France is no worse than it was before the current "existential crisis" began.
Hundreds of new patents have been registered, and foreign direct investment is unexpectedly high. The number of tourists has hit a record, making France one of the top three most visited countries.
On a broader level, hospitals, schools, universities, research centers, libraries and museums, not to mention factories and shops, continued to function as before, while the 20 million citizens who enjoy pensions and/or subsidies of various forms have received their checks because there is no administrative shutdown as in the US.
Needless to say, the widest choice of restaurants in the world continues to offer delicious food.
This autumn, the French literary scene will celebrate the largest ever number of new novels in bookshops.
Having virtually no government hasn't stopped the French tradition of anti-government riots either. We have had three in the last two months and will have another next week, even if a sixth prime minister is found. Who cares if there is no government; we must assert our Frenchness by rioting against the government. Government-less France has scored several historic victories in sports, including in various football tournaments.
The cherry on top came Tuesday when France won the Nobel Prize for Physics.
Parisian pundits mention the failure to pass a national budget for 2026 as a catastrophe to frighten the bourgeois with their jeremiad. But what if having no new budget is beneficial?
If there is no budget, the 2025 budget will be extended for 2026. Then what happens?
To start with, there would be no new taxes, a relief to a society crushed by taxation. There would also be no new rules and regulations in the name of environmental, social and solidarity concerns, not to mention alternative lifestyles or compensation for real or imaginary victims. A useless but costly referendum in New Caledonia will also be scrapped.
No new budget also prevents the state from hiring new people for a bloated bureaucracy or spending money on sweetheart deals and prestige projects.
Even better, you won't have to raise pensions and subsidies in line with inflation, which means preventing an increase in government expenditure while continuing to collect taxes at rates set in 2025. That causes a drop in the budget deficit, which could mean less borrowing, thus reducing national debt and curbing interest rates.
The experience might make people rethink the balance of power between state and society in a modern democracy.
Gatestone Institute would like to thank the author for his kind permission to reprint this article in slightly different form from Asharq Al-Awsat. He graciously serves as Chairman of Gatestone Europe.
Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan
in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable
publications, published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987.
Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21970/france-life-without-government
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