A TOC, a reflex, an automatism… At least since the “economic miracle” attributed to Chancellor Schröder, the French have constantly compared themselves to their neighbors across the Rhine. Germany is thus set up as a model of excellence, its performance contrasting with our supposed mediocrity. The examples are numerous. Its unemployment rate (2.9%) contrasts with our still stiff labor market (7.4%). Its fabric of exporting manufacturing SMEs relegates us to the rank of industrial dwarf. Its ability to form political coalitions, where our Parliament is the scene of trench warfare, makes us look like a “decivilized” country.
You have to pinch yourself to believe it, but Germany also develops complexes when it compares itself… to France! Der Spiegel magazine has just published a glowing column in which it calls France “the best version of Germany”.
The facts are there, according to Michael Sauga, the author of the article. “Germany’s economic performance is more than 40% better than France’s, but the gap is closing,” observes Der Spiegel. In 2023 and 2024, tricolor economic growth will be twice that of the Federal Republic. France is catching up in the global competitiveness rankings, while Germany is falling. International companies more often choose France for investment, even in sectors where Germany excels, such as automotive or mechanical engineering.
This “remarkable momentum” would be credited to President Emmanuel Macron, if Der Spiegel is to be believed. “As soon as he took office, Macron began administering bitter, but salutary remedies to his compatriots,” it read. The list is well known. Since 2017, the Macron administration has lowered corporate taxes, eased job protections and asked the French to work more. More recently, the government managed to reform pensions, an old political totem. “France is suddenly seen as a country where politics acts as it speaks,” observes the German columnist. Which contrasts, it seems, with the previous tenants of the Élysée.
Der Spiegel’s chronicle also gives France the edge on energy policy. After the Fukushima disaster (2011), former Chancellor Angela Merkel, like other leaders, chose to get out of nuclear power as quickly as possible. “Since the war in Ukraine, more and more European capitals have changed their tune,” observes the columnist. In the energy transition phase, it would be foolish to completely forgo a reliable and largely local source of electricity. »
In 2015, François Hollande’s France decided to limit the share of nuclear power in its electricity production to 50% (compared to 75% currently). Emmanuel Macron’s France went back on this objective and even relaunched the nuclear power sector. In “misinterpretation”, the current German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, still considers this energy source as a “dead horse”. Result: electricity costs twice my dear to French industrialists.
On Europe, Der Spiegel hails the French “fireworks of proposals” for greater integration within the European Union. A process that Berlin “used to arrogantly reject before reluctantly embracing”. Another French success to the detriment of Germany: it was Emmanuel Macron who pushed the candidacy of Ursula von der Leyen (a German!) to the presidency of the European Commission and it was he, too, who demanded a common response to the “new geo-economic otherwise-European superpower”. “We talk a lot about the ‘change of era’ in Berlin, but it is in Paris that we conceive it”, slices the columnist. Blow to the ego!
