金融時報:“法國黑”，高級黑？

“法國黑”，高級黑？

美國企業(yè)高管抨擊法國工人低效懶惰，一天只干三小時，法國人說這是“反法情緒”。巴黎政治學(xué)院教授、前LSE院長霍華德·戴維斯令人信服地指出：他這么黑不對，法國經(jīng)濟的優(yōu)勢和劣勢都很突出。

測試中可能遇到的詞匯和知識：

19th-hole 高爾夫俚語，標準的高爾夫賽只有18洞，19洞指的是球場的酒吧或飯館，球手們進行社交活動的地方?；蛑?8洞打平后的加賽。

tirade [ta?'re?d] n.激烈的長篇演說

the hexagon 六邊形，六角形，指法國

Légion d’honneur Legion of Honor 榮譽軍團勛章，是法國政府對有杰出貢獻者頒發(fā)的榮譽稱號，1802年拿破侖設(shè)立。巴金、金庸、李嘉誠等華人曾獲頒。

shoehorn|n. 鞋拔；vt. 硬塞進

addressee[,ædre'si?] n.收件人

grandiloquent[græn'd?l?kw?nt] adj.大言不慚的

chalice['t?æl?s] n.圣餐杯；酒杯

diatribe['da??tra?b] n.誹謗；惡罵

‘Le French-bashing’ misses the mark (1017 words)

By Howard Davies

Maurice Taylor, chief executive of the Titan tyre company, first came to public attention in the US in 1996 when he ran, or rather stumbled, for the presidency. He spent a lot of his own money to earn about 1 per cent of the vote in the Republican primaries he entered, and published a manifesto of sorts entitled Kill All the Lawyers and Other Ways to Fix the Government. It is clear that he has a 19th-hole ideology, and a sense of humour to match.

The French have, perhaps to their credit, failed to see the joke in his tirade against their workers, trade unions, government and pretty much everyone else in the hexagon. “Titan is going to buy a Chinese tyre company or an Indian one, pay less than one euro per hour and ship all the tyres France needs. You can keep the so-called workers,” he wrote in a letter, a copy of which was published this week in Les Echos. “Outraged of Paris” has been loud in his condemnation. We may take it that Mr Taylor will not be a candidate for the Légion d’honneur in the Socialist Republic of Hollande.

The French are rather sensitive these days to what they see as “le French-bashing”. They think nobody loves them. They are inclined to see signs of an Anglo-Saxon conspiracy involving credit rating agencies (why did they downgrade France but not, until Friday night, the UK?), the British press (led by The Economist), prime minister David Cameron with his proffered red carpet for exiled entrepreneurs, and now multinationals such as Titan and ArcelorMittal. It may be tough to shoehorn Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal into the Anglo-Saxon box, but needs must. Even their formerly reliable allies across the Rhine have been joining in. It just isn’t fair.

The lightning rod for these attacks, and addressee of Mr Taylor’s letter, is Arnaud Montebourg, the minister for redressement productif or industrial renewal – a grandiloquent title that might be thought to be asking for trouble in recessionary times. Mr Montebourg was a threat to President François Hollande in the Socialist party primaries, attacking him from the left. In an earlier manifestation, he was spokesman for Ségolène Royal’s presidential campaign in 2007, remarking that she had only one fault: her partner, at that time Mr Hollande. There may be quiet satisfaction in the Elysée that the chalice offered to Mr Montebourg has proved quite as poisoned as it has.

The notion, encouraged by Mr Montebourg, that the government is the victim of a co-ordinated attack by these disparate forces is absurd, but just because the French are paranoid doesn’t mean people are not out to get them. There is a narrative that says France is becoming the sick man of Europe, with a stagnant economy, stubbornly high unemployment, a persistent trade deficit and a budget deficit highly likely to exceed the 3 per cent target to which the government is committed through the Maastricht treaty, exposing it to the threat of EU criticism and possibly sanctions. That critique is not heard only in London or Washington: many French economists are anxious, too. There is no shortage of dissent in Paris itself.

Therefore, despite Mr Taylor’s eccentric phraseology – “How stupid do you think we are?” – his letter to Mr Montebourg fell on fertile ground. The problem is that he has taken aim at the wrong target, and attacked the French at their strongest point. With enemies such as Mr Taylor, the French have no need of friends. Indeed, his attack on feckless workers suggests he may be a few treads short of a radial.

Because the truth is that the productivity of French workers is not at all bad. The French do work fewer hours than most comparable nations. They work, on average, 16 per cent fewer hours than the OECD average, and 25 per cent fewer than the industrialised Asian nations. Yet their output per hour compares very well. A UBS study from 2009 showed that annual French output was $36,500 per head, compared with $44,150 in the US. But on average the French work 1,453 hours a year, while their American counterparts are clocked in for 1,792 hours. So on a per hour basis the French produce $25, and the Americans $24.60. Not a huge difference, perhaps, but it certainly does not suggest that French workers – while they are on site – are on a permanent coffee break, or drinking a ballon de rouge behind the bike sheds.

Figures from the UK’s Office for National Statistics tell a similar story. Productivity per hour in France is about 15 per cent higher than in the UK, and almost on a par with Germany’s. The French are able to produce a remarkable amount in their short working week. We should not be astonished by these numbers. They reflect, in part, higher investment per head in France, compared with the US and the UK. Last month’s report from the LSE Growth Commission showed that in the past 35 years, investment in France has been higher than that in Anglo-Saxon economies by about 3-4 per cent of gross domestic product.

France’s primary problem is not the productivity of those in work. It is that restrictive labour laws penalise hiring, which leads in turn to higher unemployment. The “ins” are protected from the “outs”, which tends to increase labour costs. France’s costs have been rising more rapidly than Germany’s, so its competitiveness has deteriorated. Unemployment contributes to the budget problem through increased welfare payments, and makes cutting public-sector jobs more difficult.

Mr Taylor has, therefore, missed the point entirely in his intemperate diatribe. Guy Mollet, the former French trade union leader, once said that France had the most stupid rightwing politicians in the world. The recent comic opera antics of François Fillon and Jean-François Copé, who both seek to succeed Nicolas Sarkozy as head of the centre-right UMP party, have lent support to his point of view. But Mr Taylor has shown that the French right have no monopoly on back-to-front arguments.

請根據(jù)你所讀到的文章內(nèi)容，完成以下自測題目：

1.What is correct about “le French-bashing”?

A. The French think nobody loves them.

B. It is a term coined by British press.

C. Anglo-Saxon credit rating firms downgraded France but not the UK.

D. None of above.

答案(1)

2.Which of the following is not one of France's economic problems?

A. High unemployment.

B. High inflation.

C. A persistent trade deficit.

D. A budget deficit.

答案(2)

3.Why Mr. Taylor "attacked the French at their strongest point"?

A. French workers are not at all lazy, they work as many hours as workers in US or UK.

B. Frenchmen's hourly productivity is higher than Anglo-Saxons'.

C. Workers are better protected and taken care of by the state.

D. Investment in France has been higher than in Anglo-Saxon economies.

答案(3)

4.What's the writer's opinion toward Minister Montebourg?

A. He should not have helped Ségolène Royal and attacked Hollande.

B. He was a threat to Hollande in the Socialist party primaries.

C. The Elysée is satisfied about his work, even he's having a hard time.

D. He may not be able to push forward "industrial renewal".

答案(4)

* * *

(1) 答案：A.The French think nobody loves them.

解釋：“反法情緒”顯然是自戀而敏感的法國人發(fā)明的詞匯。他們對于美國評級機構(gòu)早早降級法國卻只在上周才降級英國感到不滿，而 以《經(jīng)濟學(xué)人》為首的英國媒體又連篇累牘的把法國描述為“歐元區(qū)中心的一顆定時炸彈”。

(2) 答案：B.High inflation.

解釋：ACD都是法國的問題，但還沒有高通脹率。高失業(yè)和a stagnant economy說明經(jīng)濟活力和信心不足， 持續(xù)的貿(mào)易赤字說明經(jīng)濟競爭力不足（同樣沒有匯率的問題的德國長期保持貿(mào)易盈余），而長期的財政赤字說明有結(jié)構(gòu)性財政問題。 衡量公眾對經(jīng)濟狀況不滿程度，可以用痛苦指數(shù)Misery index。

(3) 答案：B.Frenchmen's hourly productivity is higher than Anglo-Saxons'.

解釋：你需要在好幾個數(shù)字中迅速歸納出關(guān)鍵信息。作者列舉數(shù)據(jù)說明對法國工人“低效”的抨擊是錯的，雖然他們的工時短，但是小時生產(chǎn)率比英美都高。

為什么？作者認為，部分歸功于法國長期的投資占GDP比，比英美高3-4%。更高的資本積累，意味著更好的設(shè)施（固定資本）和更高的受教育水平（人力資本）。

至于C，作者指出，The “ins” are protected from the “outs”是造成失業(yè)的原因之一，而失業(yè)帶來的福利開支讓政府減赤困難，且更不敢削減公共部門雇員，這才是癥結(jié)。

(4) 答案：D.He may not be able to push forward "industrial renewal".

解釋：作者說，industrial renewal這個夸大其詞的頭銜，聽起來就像是到處找麻煩的。作者并未表露出A觀點，B是事實而非觀點，C我們并不知道。而作者揶揄到，奧朗德給自己曾經(jīng)的對手一個酒杯——部長職位，可這是給他下毒啊。

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