French Model Fails Muslim Youth—and Farming
December 19, 2005
In France, unemployed Muslim youths burn thousands of cars in protest of their joblessness. In Kenya, small farmers lose their grain markets to French wheat dumped into export below its inflated costs. Little sugar cane farmers in Swaziland lose out to subsidized French sugar that costs twice as much to grow.
The French claim they’re protecting their little peasant farms. However, some $68 billion in EU subsidies has been poured into French farming over the past ten years and sixty percent of it went to 15 percent of the farms-the biggest ones.
The little stone farmhouses that dot the French countryside have long since been sold as weekend cottages to urban yuppies. The lavish farm subsidies permitted the big farmers to buy out their smaller neighbors, and then build fancy houses on the hilltops above their enlarged estates.
Rock star Bob Geldof points out that the average French cow gets more governments dollars each year than the average African farmer is able to earn.
The French economic model resembles a near-bankrupt General Motors, with too-expensive products and too few jobs. The government guarantees good jobs with wonderful vacation and health benefits—but for a smaller and smaller proportion of its citizens. France created virtually no additional jobs—except in its government bureaus—during the recent decades when the U. S. economy added 30 million jobs.
To pay benefits and farm subsidies for the few, business taxes are crushingly high: thus, unemployment is high too. Officially, French unemployment is double America’s at 10 percent. Unofficially, it’s far higher.
Unemployment among Muslim youth runs over 50 percent. French Muslim kids, who don’t expect to ever own cars, have been burning 100 French cars on the average non-riot night!
France is taking the same beggar-thy-neighbor approach to farm policy. The rest of the European Union has agreed to a major cutback in its farm subsidies in the current Doha Round of World Trade Organization negotiations. In exchange, the EU would get more access to markets for its workers’ metallurgy and meat products in emerging economies such as China and Indonesia.
The French, however, threaten to veto any cuts in their EU farm subsidies—the costs of which are paid largely by Germany. Two million fat French farmers are holding hostage the economic future of 475 million Europeans. That includes 35 million farmers in new EU countries such as Poland and Romania who are being offered one-fourth the subsidy levels of the French farmers.
The real tragedy is that French farmers don’t really need subsidies. The world is demanding more and more food, especially high-value foods. Meat and grain consumption are setting global records year after year. Fancy bleu cheeses are earning big bucks.
Most of the world farm demand growth is in Asia, where land and water are scarce. China and India, however, currently have high farm import barriers to protect their farmers from France’s subsidized export surpluses!
If the French export subsidies ceased and the Asian markets opened, French farmers would sell more, at higher market prices, in the Asian market. Asian workers could afford better diets. Asian tropical forests would no longer be cleared to grow chicken feed. French business taxes could be lowered enough to create jobs for Muslim youth—selling more French products and services that actually earn the country a profit.
The French should be embarrassed over their farm subsidies. Unfortunately, most of the French farm subsidy critique applies almost equally to America’s own farm subsidies. We just don’t subsidize our farm exports quite as directly and foolishly as Europe.
America’s saving grace is that we’ve offered to slash our farm subsidies radically if other countries will open their farm markets. The senate might even approve such a farm trade liberalization, since it would likely double American farmers’ export earnings.
Now, if we can only help Europe drag France into the 21st century. . . .
Posted in Commentary |