{"id":14567,"date":"2012-05-03T18:47:59","date_gmt":"2012-05-03T16:47:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/?p=14567"},"modified":"2017-10-20T13:05:20","modified_gmt":"2017-10-20T11:05:20","slug":"hollande-vs-sarkozy-comics-economics-and-freakonomics-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/hollande-vs-sarkozy-comics-economics-and-freakonomics-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Hollande Vs. Sarkozy: Comics, Economics, and Freakonomics! (Part I)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/medya.todayszaman.com\/todayszaman\/2012\/05\/03\/fr.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"491\" height=\"246\" \/><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>As you saw in yesterday&#8217;s &#8220;<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/hollande-vs-sarkozy-get-in-the-ring\/\">Hollande Vs. Sarkozy: Get in the Ring!<\/a><\/strong>&#8220;, the first round of the <strong>French Presidential Debate<\/strong> can be best described by the French motto of &#8220;<em><strong>pas de quartier<\/strong><\/em>&#8221; (&#8220;no pity&#8221;), especially after media reports quoted <strong>Sarkozy<\/strong>\u00a0saying: &#8220;<strong><em>Je vais l&#8217;exploser<\/em><\/strong>&#8221; (&#8220;I&#8217;m gonna blow him up&#8221;)<strong>!<\/strong><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><\/div>\n<div>Things heated up even more when it came to the topic of\u00a0<strong><em>l&#8217;\u00c9CONOMIE<\/em>&#8230;\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\">\u2666\u00a0<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>COMICS, ECONOMICS, and FREAKONOMICS<\/strong><\/span><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><strong>\u2666<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>There were definitely a couple of &#8220;<strong>comic<\/strong>&#8221; moments out there. Some interesting economic points were made on both sides. And some of the propositions put forward were worthy of the field of &#8220;<strong>Freakonomics<\/strong>&#8220;!<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Only two more days to go before France discovers its leader for the next five years.<\/p>\n<p>Will it be again <strong>Nicolas Sarkozy<\/strong>, or the leader of the <strong>Socialist party<\/strong>, <strong>Fran\u00e7ois Hollande<\/strong>?<\/p>\n<p>This &#8220;<strong>bullet point summary<\/strong>&#8221; will certainly help you know the two French candidates a bit better&#8212;Not to mention that it can also be a good French language exercise for you: improving your <strong>listening<\/strong> and <strong>reading<\/strong> <strong>comprehension<\/strong>! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=TJ3zCh5qt48\">http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=TJ3zCh5qt48<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">HOLLANDE vs. SARKOZY: The Big Debate <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>L&#8217;\u00c9CONOMIE: Les solutions propos\u00e9es <\/strong><\/span><\/em><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">(suggested solutions)<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">For 00:00:00 -00:09:10:<\/span>\u00a0<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li>For this segment of the video, check the post\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/hollande-vs-sarkozy-get-in-the-ring\/\">Hollande Vs. Sarkozy: Get in the Ring!<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">00:09:10 -00:06:40<\/span>:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Hollande<\/span>:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>When you became a President, you promised to bring <em><strong>le\u00a0<strong><em>ch\u00f4mage<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>(unemployment) down to <strong>5%<\/strong>, and that you would view anything above that level as\u00a0<strong><em>un\u00a0\u00e9chec <\/em><\/strong>(a failure.) Today\u00a0<em><strong>le\u00a0<strong><em>ch\u00f4mage<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>is double that number, so clearly it&#8217;s a failure. Of course, you will say it&#8217;s the fault of\u00a0<strong><em>la crise financi\u00e8re\u00a0mondiale <\/em><\/strong>(the world financial crisis), but look at <strong>Germany<\/strong>, they have less\u00a0<em><strong><strong><em>ch\u00f4mage<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>than we do, despite <strong><em>la crise<\/em><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>What France needs above all is\u00a0<strong><em>la production.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0I will create a <strong>public bank<\/strong>\u00a0specifically for that purpose. I will modify the tax system.<\/li>\n<li>Finally, I have a brand new solution: <strong><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.francoishollande38.fr\/90-le-contrat-de-generation.htm\/\">le contrat de g<\/a><em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.francoishollande38.fr\/90-le-contrat-de-generation.htm\/\">\u00e9n<em><strong>\u00e9rations<\/strong><\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/em><\/strong>(the &#8220;Generations Contract&#8221;)<strong><strong>:<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong>\u00a0As an incentive to protect both the young and old professionals, no taxes will be levied on companies that employ both <strong>seniors *and* juniors <\/strong>indefinitely.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">00:12:10 -00:16:15<\/span>:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Sarkozy<\/span>:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The numbers you just gave are<strong> <em>faux <\/em><\/strong>(false.) True, unemployment climbed in my tenure, but it climbed much more in <strong>Italy<\/strong><em>, <\/em><strong>England<em>, <\/em>Spain, <\/strong>and\u00a0the<strong> US. <\/strong>The rate through which it rose in France is <strong>half the European average<\/strong>. I&#8217;m still not too proud of that, but I don&#8217;t see why <strong><em>Monsieur<\/em> Hollande<\/strong> needs to lie about the numbers just to make me look bad.<\/li>\n<li>Why <strong>Germany<\/strong> is doing well? That is because when France was busy doing <strong><em>les 35 heures<\/em><\/strong>,\u00a0Germany was implementing the same reforms that you are still refusing today!<\/li>\n<li>As for your suggested solutions: You propose to create a public bank? Big deal, it already exists: It&#8217;s called <strong><em>La banque publique de l&#8217;industrie, <\/em><\/strong>subsidiary of <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.oseo.fr\/\">OS\u00c9O<\/a>. <\/strong>That&#8217;s one promise you won&#8217;t have a hard time keeping, because it&#8217;s already there! As for your\u00a0<em><strong>contrat de g\u00e9n\u00e9rations<\/strong><\/em>, it doesn&#8217;t make any sense, because you will be helping people who already got a job, whereas I want to help people who don&#8217;t. Even your close friend<strong><em>, <\/em>Martine Aubry<\/strong><em>, <\/em>said it was an absurd idea.<\/li>\n<li>My solutions are: To trim <em><strong>le co\u00fbt du travail\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>(the cost of work) so that companies don&#8217;t have to move away; <strong>forming<\/strong> the young unemployed to make them ready for the jobs of tomorrow instead of those of yesterday; and promoting <strong>innovation<\/strong> so that we become again <strong>competitive<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">00:16:15 &#8211; 00:19:33<\/span>:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Hollande<\/strong><\/span>:\n<ul>\n<li>I understand you are upset about unemployment, but you know who else is more upset about it? It&#8217;s the unemployed themselves.\u00a0The fact remains that you promised to lower unemployment down to <strong>5%<\/strong> when you were elected, and today it&#8217;s standing at double that figure.<\/li>\n<li>Your comparison with Germany is simply <strong><em>pitoyable <\/em><\/strong>(pathetic.)<\/li>\n<li>Then you say <strong><em>pas de chance <\/em><\/strong>(tough luck), and point your finger to\u00a0<strong><em>les 35 heures <\/em><\/strong>as the main culprit. Did you forget that you have actually been in power for <strong><em>dix ans <\/em><\/strong>(ten years)? Not simply as President for the past five years, but also five years prior to that as <strong>Minister under<\/strong> <strong>Chirac<\/strong>, and for some time as a\u00a0<strong>Finance Minister<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>70 billion Euros<\/strong> is the staggering size of French deficit today. It&#8217;s not the <strong>Socialists<\/strong>&#8216; fault (under <strong>Lionel Jospin<\/strong>) ten years ago, or\u00a0<strong>Mitterrand<\/strong>&#8216;s fault back in the <strong>1980s<\/strong>\u00a0like you often like to say. You personally share a big responsibility.<\/li>\n<li>Now you say, &#8220;ok, I found the solution, it took me some time, but now I got it.&#8221; What is your solution? It&#8217;s\u00a0<em><strong>la TVA sociale <\/strong><\/em>(tax to finance social security), which will obviously undermine <strong><em>la croissance <\/em><\/strong>(growth) of the country, but would supposedly help <strong>French companies<\/strong> be more <strong>competitive <\/strong>abroad<em>. <\/em>In reality, the lion&#8217;s share of the money you&#8217;ll be taking away from French people will go not to the industrial companies, but will rather be rewarded to <strong>the banks<\/strong> and the <strong>service sector<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>You say that the unemployed need <strong>formation<\/strong>. Yes, of course they do. But since you&#8217;ve been elected, only <strong>10%<\/strong> of them benefited from a professional formation. That&#8217;s too little! Now you come and say that you will offer formation to the unemployed&#8212;Fine, but why haven&#8217;t you done that all these years? What were you waiting for, I wonder?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><em>\u00c0 SUIVRE<\/em> (TO BE CONTINUED)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<img width=\"350\" height=\"175\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2012\/05\/fr-350x175.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image tmp-hide-img\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2012\/05\/fr-350x175.jpg 350w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2012\/05\/fr.jpg 614w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><p>As you saw in yesterday&#8217;s &#8220;Hollande Vs. Sarkozy: Get in the Ring!&#8220;, the first round of the French Presidential Debate can be best described by the French motto of &#8220;pas de quartier&#8221; (&#8220;no pity&#8221;), especially after media reports quoted Sarkozy\u00a0saying: &#8220;Je vais l&#8217;exploser&#8221; (&#8220;I&#8217;m gonna blow him up&#8221;)! Things heated up even more when it&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/hollande-vs-sarkozy-comics-economics-and-freakonomics-part-i\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":23608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[224238,224239,224223,13403,224237,224248,9744,224242,224240,224247,224241,224245,224244,525,224243,224246],"class_list":["post-14567","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vocabulary","tag-economics","tag-formation-of-the-unemployed","tag-francois-hollande","tag-francois-mitterrand","tag-freakonomics","tag-french-deficit","tag-la-crise-financiere","tag-la-tva-sociale","tag-le-chomage","tag-le-contrat-des-generations","tag-le-debat-presidentiel-2012","tag-les-35-heures","tag-lionel-jospin","tag-nicolas-sarkozy","tag-the-french-solcialist-party","tag-the-german-model"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14567"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28380,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14567\/revisions\/28380"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}