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French economic policy

法国经济政策

Which way for Mr Hollande?

奥朗德何去何从？

Elected on the left,France’s president seems to be veering towards the centre

左翼当选，而今法国总统似向中间摇摆

THE longer Francois Hollande spends in office, the more it takes sharp eyesight and a clear head to follow his economic policy. Since his election last May, the Socialist president has mixed tax-and-spend measures with efforts to improve competitiveness. The rich feel squeezed; firms are annoyed by anti-business talk. Yet,with GDP shrinking in the fourth quarter of 2012 and job losses mounting, the man elected on a leftist programme is accused of a swerve to the reformist centre. What is Mr Hollande up to?

奥朗德任职时间越长，他的经济政策就越发扑朔迷离。自从去年五月当选以来，这位社会党主席就一直采用量入为出的手段并辅以促进竞争的不懈努力。富人感到备受压迫；反商业会谈让公司恼怒不堪。然而，随着2012年第四季度GDP的缩水以及失业人数的增加，人们质疑这位因左派纲领当选的人向改革的中间方向摇摆。奥朗德先生该何去何从？

In his first few months he ticked off items on his manifesto. He lowered the pension age for certain workers. He raised a family benefit. He capped petrol prices. He vowed to stop companies closing factories. He prepared a budget for 2013 that tried to keep the budget deficit to 3% of GDP, but chiefly through tax increases: it soaked the rich with a 75% income-tax rate, and hit companies and individuals with other higher taxes. Returning from his summer break, Mr Hollande seemed like a man with the luxury of time on his side.

在上任之初的几个月内，他兑现了之前宣言上的条目。他降低了一些工人领养老金的年龄。他增加了家庭收入。他设置了油价上限。他誓言会阻止公司关闭工厂。他计划将2013年的预算赤字降低到GDP的3%，但主要的手段是增加税收：75%的所得税压得富人喘不过气，而公司和个人也遭遇其他苛税。结束了夏季休假的奥朗德有充裕的时间大展宏图。

What followed in October was, therefore, sprung on an unsuspecting public. After a damning report on French competitiveness by Louis Gallois, a left-leaning industrialist, Mr Hollande announced 20 billion euros of tax breaks for companies employing low-wage labour, to compensate for high social charges. A sense of urgency and realism began to creep in. Mr Gallois talked of an “emergency situation”. For the first time, the government acknowledged labour cost as a factor behindFrance’s loss of competitiveness to Germany over the past ten years. Mr Hollande even started talking of cutting public spending, which accounts for over 56% of GDP. This was followed in January by an unexpected agreement with the unions to soften labour-market rules, making it easier for companies to reduce hours and wages in a downturn.

是以，在十月份接踵而至的事，让不知情的群众为之一震。在路易斯加洛伊斯，一位左倾实业家，发表了一份报告谴责法国的竞争力，此后，奥朗德宣布给予雇佣低薪劳动力的公司200亿欧元的税收减免以补偿高额的社会负担费用。紧迫感与现实主义暗潮汹涌。加洛伊斯认为“事态紧急”。政府前所未有地承认劳动力成本是导致过去十年间法国竞争力逊于德国的一个因素。奥朗德甚至开始考虑削减公众开支，而这占到了GDP的56%以上。紧接着的一月，法国出人意料地和工会达成了宽松劳动市场规则的协定，让公司能更轻松地减少工作时间和工资。

In some ways, all this was just an inevitable encounter with economic reality. Mr Hollande had based his manifes to on growth in 2013 of 1.7%; in office, he revised this to 0.8%. Now the fantasy is over: this week Mr Hollande conceded, like most economists, that growth would be much lower. As a result, said the Cour des Comptes, the national auditor, in its annual report on February 12th, France has “little chance” of meeting its 3% target.

在某种程度上，这一切只是无可避免地撞上了经济现状的高墙而已。奥朗德的竞选纲领建立在2013年经济增长1.7%的目标上；任职后，他把这个数字修正为0.8%。现在，美梦破碎，本周奥朗德一如众多经济学家般承认，增长率会低得多。而最后的结果，就像国家审计员Cour des Comptes在2月12日的年报中所说的那样，法国实现3%赤字目标的可能性“微乎其微”。

Across the country, factories have been closing. Industrial production has stalled. Entrepreneurs feel penalised. Investment plans are on hold. Anecdotes abound of rich families leaving the country. Faced with this, and with poor poll ratings, Mr Hollande has begun to recognise the limits of state power, and of a tax-and-spend policy in a country that breaks records for both. Now Jean-Marc Ayrault, his prime minister, wants “to reinvent the French model”. Pierre Moscovici, the finance minister, even claims there has been a “Copernican revolution” on the left. By conceding the need for supply-side measures to reduce labour costs, he says, the French left has made a big shift. Indeed. Some say that those around Mr Hollande in charge of economic policy, including Mr Moscovici, Michel Sapin, the labour minister, and Emmanuel Macron, the economic adviser in the Elysee, have long understood what is really needed to solve France’s competitiveness problem.

纵观全国，工厂纷纷关闭。工业生产陷入泥潭。企业家感觉受到严惩。投资计划搁置了。人们耳边充斥着富裕家庭离开国家的消息。面对这一切窘境还有消极的民调，奥朗德开始意识到政权以及量入为出政策的局限性。现在，总理让-马克•艾罗想要“重塑法兰西模式”。财政大臣皮耶尔 莫斯科维奇 甚至宣称左翼已经历“哥白尼式的变革”。他表示，通过满足供应方降低劳动力成本的需求，法国左翼已经完成巨大的转变。一些人认为在奥朗德身边掌控经济政策的人士，包括莫斯科维奇，劳务大臣米歇尔萨宾以及Elysee的经济顾问艾米努尔马克伦早已洞悉解决法国竞争力顽疾的良药。

The trouble is that the rest of the Socialist Party, particularly in parliament, does not agree. Manuel Valls, the popular straight-talking interior minister, says that “The challenge for the French left is that we should have done this ideological metamorphosis during the past ten years of opposition.” Instead, “We are adapting our software while in office.” With its deputies supplied largely by the public sector, this is awkward. Already, the left accuses Mr Hollande of giving in to “neo-liberal principles”. Thierry Lepaon, the new leader of the Confederation Generale du Travail, France’s biggest and communist-linked union, complains that he is doing “the opposite of his campaign commitments”.

问题是社会党的剩余部众，尤其是在国会的那些人，并不同意。以直言著称的内务大臣马努尔 沃尔斯表示“对法国左翼而言，挑战是，我们应该在过去在野的十年内完成这种意识形态的变革”，但事实上，“我们上台之后仍在调整适应。”它的代表人主要是由公共部门提供产生的，这确实很尴尬。的左派已经控诉奥朗德向“新自由主义原则”让步。法国最大的共产主义工会，法国总工会的新领袖西里 莱帕昂抱怨道，奥朗德正和他的“竞选承诺背道而驰”。

In reality, it is hard to detect a linear evolution, let alone a revolution. For one thing, Mr Hollande is a political animal who plays by the rule that it is better not to say too clearly what you are doing. He refuses to acknowledge a U-turn. He let Arnaud Montebourg, his industry minister, talk of the compulsory nationalisation of a steelworks, before ruling it out. He has pinned himself into a corner over the 75% tax rate, which was ruled unconstitutional in December, but which he cannot entirely bury without losing face.

事实上，线性的演变都很难观测到，更不用说是一场巨大变革。一方面，奥朗德是一个政治动物，他不会把自己的底牌摊出来。他拒绝承认经济的U形复苏。他让工业首相Arnaud Montebourg谈道强制钢铁制品的国有化，紧接着又否决了这种可能性。他用75%的税率把自己逼入困境，而这一税率在十二月被判为违反宪法，而他也不能自圆其说，不失颜面地平息事态。

It is also far from clear that Mr Hollande, even if he sees the need to curb public spending, is ready to do it. In its damning report, the Cour des Comptes deplores the fact that tax rises make up three-quarters of 2013 budget savings, and urges a greater effort to cut spending. But this will require an overhaul of pensions and welfare spending, as well as civil-service staffing, none of which is on the table.

而且，即使奥朗德看出有必要控制公共支出，也很难说他已经做好准备。在谴责报告中，Cour des Comptes 强烈反对税收增长占到2013年预算储蓄的四分之三，并督促投入更大努力削减开支。但这意味着在养老金，福利支出以及公务员职务等方面会有大幅调整，而这样的调整并不在议程上。

Mr Hollande could yet turn out to be a Gerhard Schruder a la francaise, willing to bring in deep reforms, as the former centre-left German chancellor did, to shake up the French welfare state and restore competitiveness. But a more likely outcome is that he will do just enough to keep the markets and the ratings agencies at bay, without ever fully confronting vested interests. “Whenever he can avoid hard choices, he will,” says somebody who knows him well. This may keep France from disaster. Whether it will reverse the slow decline of the past decade is far less certain.

奥朗德可以成为法国的杰哈德施罗德，正如这位德国前总理所做的一样，他锐意进取，深化改革，改造社会福利，重塑国家竞争力。但另一种呼之欲出的结果是，他让市场与评级机构陷入泥潭，却没有和既得利益集团交锋。熟知他的人说，“他会尽其所能，避免”这也许能让法国免遭灭顶之灾。它是否能扭转过去十年间的缓慢滑坡尚不得而知。

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词汇学习：

1.turn out 证明是；结果是

例句:She'll put the blame on us if it turns out badly.

如果这件事结果不好，她会怪我们的。

2.shake up 摇匀；重组

例句:The government wanted to reform the institutions, to shake up the country

政府想要实施机构改革，整顿国家。

3.public spending 政府开支

例句:The social services account for a substantial part of public spending.

社会福利事业占了一大部分的公共支出。

4.As a result 结果是

例句:As a result, the bad thing has been turned into a good one.

结果坏事变成了好事。