Reader George Renfrew looks at whether the British example is one President Sarkozy should follow and why the French should be careful of what they wish for.

I am struck by the number of Britons who want to leave Britain. Ten per cent have already done so and the flow continues at the rate of 200,000 a year. Yet last year, 600,000 foreigners streamed in from former colonies and from recently “EU-ed” Eastern Europe . The new French president doesn’t hide his admiration for the British model but is this what the French people really want?

Does France want to replace Britain as the holder of Europe’s highest rates of functional illiteracy, street crime, gratuitous stabbings, drug use, private debt, personal bankruptcy, house repossession, car theft, domestic violence, child abuse, public drunkenness and teenage pregnancy? Do they want their elderly to finish in financial distress while taxpayer’s millions are handed out to new arrivals who haven’t – and never will – pay a penny into the system? Do they want Europe’s most benevolent welfare state for outsiders (a system which, bizarrely, was fostered by Margaret Thatcher in order to attract the low-cost foreign labour demanded by business)

If President Sarkozy succeeds in making France like Britain, here is what the French will get:
Months-long waits to see a doctor for the simplest medical or dental act; several months’ salary for medical procedures that are currently free; cancer and heart disease survival rates lower than even Poland’s; private health insurance with companies that will leave them high and dry when they go bankrupt; MRSA-ridden hospitals run on economic rather than on medical grounds and where many patients come out sicker than when they went in; women giving birth in hospital corridors and even in hospital toilets; hospital staff that don’t speak the native language.

The pensions they’ve worked hard to accumulate tied up in private schemes that often go broke if the high flying “boss” hasn’t already absconded with the funds; the elderly forced to work into their 80s before perishing of neglect in shoddy understaffed care homes; appalling public transport at outrageous prices; motorways clogged to a standstill; a system of higher education that all too often admits students depending upon the wealth of the parents and not the academic abilities of the student; derelict state schools where discipline is as non-existent as is learning;  councils with the right to tax the beauty of the view from their home.

Gangs of armed feral youths roaming urban streets; a police force so afraid of being accused of human rights abuse that it remains largely invisible; extremist Islamic fanatics allowed to openly preach hate and violence in the name of "freedom of religion"; the most crowded prisons in Europe;  the “right” of foreigners to be tried in the language of their choice even if they fluently speak the national language;  over 12% of inhabitants who can’t speak that language; masses of unemployed foreigners granted cash benefits from the day they arrive and forevermore without ever having paid anything in and without ever appearing in the official unemployment statistics; fewer rights on a citizen’s return from a stint abroad than a newly arrived foreigner has.

Fathers holding two jobs just to repay the mortgage on an average family home; working hours so long that parents rarely see their families and only have a few days vacation each year; families holding so much debt that many can never hope to repay it; foreign investors holding ownership and control of most national flagship companies; no remaining national auto manufacturers;  the stench and health risks that go with infrequent rubbish collection; poor pensioners imprisoned for refusing to pay an outrageous council tax while rich celebrities like Pete Doherty are allowed to drug and drive without punishment.

We’re told that Britain is ever-so-wealthy but that is clearly nonsense. Wealthy countries don’t live this poorly and the British people see little evidence of this theoretical wealth. Their private debt exceeds GDP and therefore their ability to pay it back. That’s wealth?

If we are truly the world’s fourth richest country then who’s holding all the money? Not the Great British public who worked to create all that wealth, that’s for sure.

On the other hand, we’re told that France is on the decline but in practice the superior quality of French life is still indisputably better than the British way. The nay-sayers tell us that the fall of France is just around the corner but they’ve been predicting that for decades and it hasn’t happened yet. Yet the demise of Britain has indeed happened without a doubt. Does France (or any other country) really want to imitate the abysmal quality of the average Briton’s way of life? A quality that fuelled the desire to leave in so many of us?

If the French knew the truth about the life of the average Briton they would hope that imitating the past four decades of British economic and social policies is not what President Sarkozy has in mind. We don’t know whether the French model will endure but we do know that the British economic model has already abysmally failed all but a very few Britons. 

George Renfrew
 

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