Silly Little Country

Getting Ready for France

So I read Virginia Postrel on her recent trip and she cites James Traub (I have not got around to that article on Segolene Royal, but I will, likely today), and it has this amazing interchange:

Then the conversation took an odd turn. Royal asked me, with the air of someone pulling out a trump card, "Are you in an insecure situation?" Actually, I explained, as a contract writer for this magazine, I have little security.

Royal wasn't going to be put off the scent that easily. "Yes, but how many years does your contract last?"

"I sign a new one every year."

Now she was frankly incredulous. "You could be fired every year?" For all her own experience, Royal apparently viewed précarité as a kind of socioeconomic stigma rather than the price you might choose to pay for freedom. Or maybe you could say that for her, as for the left generally--and not only in France--market liberalism and globalization have the status merely of fact, which is categorically inferior to a right. This is no less so if the fact appears to obviate the right. "The global economy shouldn't be supported by wage earners," Royal insisted. "They have to be able to build a future, like any human being."

What is interesting is that even with this gap, our societies are much more similar in key ways than the ones I cannot imagine living in.

On our trip we are guaranteed to interact at least with a couple of actual French people (though perhaps better described as Canadian expatriates). Should be fun.

posted by Alan Adamson @ 6:51 AM