In the context of the debate for the European elections on May 25, Nice Premium asked representatives of all political parties running for election to freely and independently express their ideas and proposals. After Agnès Rampal (UMP) and Xavier Garcia (PS), it’s Gaël Nofri’s (FN) turn.
Gaël Nofri (National Front) is the campaign director for Jean-Marie Le Pen, head of the list in the South-East constituency, where Marie-Christine Arnautu, candidate for the mayor of Nice and elected to the municipal council, is second on the list.
The question that the Euro poses is simple: Is the currency a tool for politics, or is politics a toy in the hands of finance?
Placing a currency in the hands of an independent European central bank calls into question the place of politics. This constitutes a denial of democracy that can only be explained by a single phenomenon: the political construction known as “Europe of Brussels” is a democratic nonsense. Why? Simply because democracy means People. Yet there is no “ONE” European people but European Peoples; there is not one language, identity, or shared history, but a diversity. The richness of Europe is precisely this diversity, that of the Peoples and Nations that comprise it.
The issue might seem very theoretical. However, it is terribly concrete: how can we conceive of making politics above reality? How can we claim to put money and monetary policy at the service of anything but reality?
This issue manifests itself very concretely through the monetary policy that has been experimented with since 2000. By everyone’s admission, the overvaluation of the Euro is a terrible burden for our economy. At the same time, the structure of the Eurozone paralyzes our leaders’ ability to act, even though they are the primary culprits of this situation.
According to Arnaud Montebourg, who is still a member of the Government, a gradual devaluation of the Euro by 20% could create 300,000 jobs, reduce our deficit by a third, and balance the trade balance.
It is moreover false and complacent to speak of an overvaluation of the Euro. The Euro is not overvalued; it is valued for an “average economy” of the Eurozone. But, alongside this average currency, the average country does not exist: the reality is that the Euro is an undervalued currency for the German economy and overvalued for our economies.
This observation is almost universally shared. It was Maurice Allais’s stance, the only French Nobel laureate in Economics, even before the Euro’s launch. It notably became that of Christopher Pissarides, Nobel Prize in Economics in 2010.
The Euro, which was once sold to us in the name of growth (now one of the world’s weakest), full employment (11.7% unemployment, including 28% in Greece and 54.3% among Spanish youth), and fair competition with the United States (undermined by the announcement of the TTIP*), now holds only by fear.
Diehard defenders of the Euro have a two-pronged argument: first, outside the Euro, there is no salvation; secondly, it matters not if the Euro is beneficial or not since we cannot exit it.
The first argument is clearly false. One simply has to cite England with its 7% unemployment rate. And what about the Danes who refused their entry into the Eurozone by referendum in 2000 and who are, according to the latest polls, 64% opposed to the single currency. This doesn’t seem to have had a negative impact on Denmark’s exports, which alone represent 32% of its GDP.
Finally, the idea that one cannot exit the Euro is a sort of fatalistic and anti-democratic rhetoric that poorly conceals its totalitarian undertones. Just as the Euro was previously seen as non-negotiable because it was presented not as a political choice but as a revealed truth contesting which alone classified one among semi-demented individuals; similarly, today, mentioning exiting the Euro borders on blasphemy.
Beyond fear and dialectics, what are we really discussing?
Technically, monetary partition is one of the easiest exercises to implement, as proven by the Czechoslovakia example in 1992. The impact of such a measure on State and household debt would be almost nil. Indeed, in France, 97% of public debt and 98.5% of private debt are based on contracts under French law. These would therefore have to be settled in the currency that is legal tender in France, according to international law provisions known as Lex Monetae.
The last preconceived idea is that exiting the Euro would result in France’s imminent ruin, its isolation on the international scene, and its withdrawal from the European economic game. This one borders on the ridiculous. Reality and history are there to prove it: France plays a central, pivotal role on the European continent. How could one conceive of a European exchange and movement area constructed without France? A mere glance, even by a poor geography student, would be enough to demonstrate the lack of credibility of the apostles predicting French impotence. The “NO” to the European Constitution of 2005 did not lead to constructing a parallel Europe excluding France, quite the opposite, because Europe passes through France. This central place and decisive role give weight and importance to our position in Europe.
This doesn’t mean we should do anything reckless. It merely means we shouldn’t rule out any avenue. It’s necessary to look at things as they are, not as fantasized. The Euro, as we know it, has had its time. The only question is whether we wait to stumble in the next crisis or if we take a concerted initiative with our partners today to calmly consider returning, in some form, to our monetary sovereignty. This doesn’t exclude other arrangements like, for instance, a common currency that isn’t a single currency…
The only hindrance to this reasoning is that, you see, our Euro-enthusiasts have a dogma: federalism is the solution, and nothing should hinder the “glorious march of humanity” towards the globalized market… no hesitation is tolerated, worse, return is proscribed.
Such is, in fact, the argument used to justify all the failures of the European Union: it’s never the fault of the European model if things go wrong; it’s not because Brussels is nonsense that we witness the failure of implemented policies… quite the opposite! It is because there’s not enough European integration that things go awry. It’s the last breadcrumbs of democracy, the ultimate dust of reality, that jam the magnificent Europa machine. A phantasmagoric machine straight out of the mind of a mad professor never leaving his laboratory… A little daydream whose rescue has already cost the French taxpayer 70 billion Euros… awaiting the inevitable next crisis!
However, you are right to say that the issue of the Euro is not the only problem at hand… There were difficulties before, there are problems alongside… We did not reach the staggering figure of 2,000 billion in debt without a few cumulative errors. I remind you that we live in a country where no budget has been voted in balance since 1974, since the enactment of the 1973 Law (reiterated by Article 123 of the Treaty of Lisbon), prohibiting the French State from borrowing from the Bank of France – which brings us back to the relationship between political power and currency.
Nevertheless, it is indeed necessary to begin the reforms needed to rebalance public finances: immigration, the failure of successive urban policies, the intermittent show-business regime weighing down the general unemployment insurance scheme, the weight of certain salary charges at the local government level or in certain ministries such as Bercy, France’s role as a net contributor to the European Union’s budget…
I would add that the virtuous circle that a competitive and reasonable devaluation of our currency would generate, by reducing the number of unemployed and rebalancing our trade balance, would offer additional leeway to finance the structural reforms you refer to.
These are obviously necessary. But let’s not be mistaken, the issue of “less State,” while entirely legitimate in many areas, leads to ideological and dogmatic debate. I would rather substitute it with “better State.” The State must indeed simplify itself and invest massively to allow the expression of talents, the liberation of initiatives. I believe the State must push for research and innovation. The share of our GDP devoted to this domain is unfortunately ridiculously low and must grow by nearly 50% if we do not want to mortgage our future… this requires, evidently, arbitration, but it is also the price to pay if France intends to remain a modern and innovative Nation.
Moreover, I greatly believe in the virtues of land management, which, in a vast and rich country like ours, is a tool at the service of the economy, industry, and employment.
More than ever, I believe in the Nation-State. More than ever, I believe in the importance of national sovereignty, the essential role of Nations. You see, when considering the world as it is, the major powers are all Nations that have one particularity: that of assuming themselves as such. The successful model is that of a Nation aware of itself, eager to protect its interests, to defend its independence, to build a future that resembles it… happy globalization is literature for a marrying girl!
The Nation, it’s the model that guarantees respect for Peoples, the rise of democracies, the regulation of the economy by politics, the maintenance of our role as actors in History. It is also the one that protects with its borders, exchanges with its treaties, seeks peace, and compromises with its allies.
That’s why you see, contrary to the PS, and the UMP allied with globalism, I do not believe in the integrated market and the disintegrated peoples. I’m not a socialist, unlike the collaborator Marcel Déat who wrote in June 1943: “No nation can attempt its chance alone anymore… The States will have to lose part of their national sovereignty… One will love Europe if it is synonymous with justice and new order, if it has the face of socialism, if it is a great community… There will be a Federal Council with a European Executive, a currency, a police, an army… The European order will be socialist or will not be…”
(* Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership)
