Swimming Tuesday: 1.15km
Walking Wednesday: 3.8km
Cycling Thursday: 9.2km
Walking Friday: 3.8km
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I've written before about the Instinctive French distrust of "Anglo-Saxon" (ie: American or British) banking and economic values and the slightly hesitant steps taken by the socialist government here to introduce more elements of free-market operation. The BBC's Emily Maitliss did a good analysis of the French view of life in 2012 as countries slowly began to emerge from the financial crash of 2008. Her thesis was that the French were quite happy with the large size of their state sector, the proof of the value of their system was shown by the comparatively small rise in unemployment during the economic crisis compared to the reckless economies of Great Britain and the USA.
The problem since then has been that the unemployment rate here has stayed stubbornly elevated as the economy has recovered and government spending has ballooned to 57.5% of GDP - according to The Wall Street Journal it is only in Cuba and the Federated States of Micronesia that the Government spends more as a proportion of GDP than France. The comparable figure for the UK is 42.2%.
But it's not all bad and I have to admit there are a number of advantages to having so much regulated by the state. In 2014 EDF (the state electricity supplier) wanted to increase the price of electricity by 10% but this was over-ruled by the government and the increase was pegged to 3%; prices in the UK went up by about 12% in the same period. Theoretically there is a free market in electricity supply here but 95% of residential properties still stick with EDF and governmental control.
SNCF (the majority state owned railway) has a terrible reputation amongst some of my friends who commute in Paris but the long-distance services (TGV) are very good in my experience. The line to Brittany is being upgraded which will bring Paris within 2 hours 30 minutes of Vannes and it will be less than 2 hours to cover the 350km from Rennes, the hand-wringing over how to finance new developments like HST2 in the UK isn't a discussion item here (maybe because the EU funds part of the cost as we live in such a backward underdeveloped part of Europe ........ :o)
If you can handle the bureaucracy (well at least it gives people a job) and the errors (latest trial for us is the bureau des impôts (the tax office)) there is a certain attractive simplicity to having the government responsible for so much - and of course complaining about it provides a simple entry to social discussions with neighbours.
Which brings me to Jeremy Corbyn and the term Corbynomics, used by the press at least in the UK as a term of derision for the new Labour Party leader's economic policies. State renationalisation of the railways, a regulated energy sector, more government borrowing to finance capital investment on infrastructure, nuclear disarmament and "people's QE" - policies that haven't been talked about in the UK for years, far less implemented, have suddenly being put on the table as a tangible alternative. If Jeremy survives the media scrutiny - and survives the rift in his party - it will be interesting to see how the electorate views such a different approach to the paradigm presented by the other conventional parties.
Of course, if he was called Jérémie Corbyn the French electorate would find his policies reassuringly familiar .......
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