Matt Welch has a new profile of France's libertarian firebrand, Sabine Herold. As noted here in June, she's leading a new counter-revolution in France, and her heroes are F.A. Hayek and Margaret Thatcher. Wish her luck -- she and her compatriots will need it.
Herold laughs easily and often. And, just maybe, the long-silent French minority that shares her views finally has a reason to crack a wary smile of its own: For the first time in memory, they have an influential ally in Prime Minister Raffarin. "He’s a libertarian," Herold insists, in excellent, accented English. "The problem is that in his government he has too many other people more conservative, so he can’t have a real libertarian policy."Posted by Alan at October 15, 2003 12:12 AMStill, by most accounts, Herold’s anti-strike revolt has given Raffarin extra fiber. "The government has stood firm on pension reform," the International Herald-Tribune reported in July, citing Herold’s protests. "Now, analysts say, it may be emboldened to push for further economic changes, such as stepped-up privatization of state-owned companies, and efforts to improve the workings of the labor market. Under discussion are reductions in the social security charges levied on employers, which have already been cut back sharply in recent years for some workers."
Despite these impressive early results, Herold’s long-term task is truly Sisyphean: Chip away at the ossified paternalism in French and European governance, convince a nation that treasures its generous safety net that it can’t last, and confront an entrenched culture that views noisome public sector strikes as the preferred method for conflict resolution.
"It’s annoying," Herold says, "because in France, we start striking, and then we go to negotiate. It would be so much more interesting to go negotiate first, and then if nothing happens, just go on strike. I don’t know, maybe it’s an old love of the Revolution, or that people missed World War II and they want to be in another kind of Resistance."
via Reason