Crawfishing back to a Golden Age: the Yellow Vests

I just came across this word crawfishing in Norman Mailer's 1948 vivisecton of war, "The Naked and the Dead". I suppose it relates to the crawfish's mode of locomotion: on its belly, and tail first. In the Army of course, this can sometimes be the wisest thing to do; or it can be a dereliction of duty. The decision is left to the superior officer. Nevertheless, the idea of crawfishing retains a pejorative nuance that leans towards the second interpretation.

In the past week, here in France we have all received invitations to the great debate about what's wrong with La République. Typically, meetings are held in various community and town halls, where the rules for debate are explained by a chairman, and the proceedings conducted by young ladies called animatrices. One lady rules the floor, while the other attempts to condense the inputs with a felt-tip on a whiteboard. Between them, they filter out the anger and the good ideas together.

Each citizen has three cards to use for the right to stand up and speak. The discussions are kept within the confines of a single question, namely "What area of your personal experience makes you share the anger of the Yellow Vests?" Four or five sub-topics are then dealt with one by one. The animatrices are quick to discipline anyone straying outside his or her own personal experience. No politics, please!

At the end of the discussion, we are each given a copy of Emmanuel Macron's verbose letter to the French nation. Ita sugary sentiments coat a layer cake of incomprehension and obfuscation.

As somebody revently observed about the US, if an ancient Greek were to find himself in present day America, he would see an oligarchy, not a democracy. The same can be said today for any number of countries, beginning with the UK and increasingly, France. Indicative of this trend is what has happened to public services in the last 35 years.

When I was here in 1986, a Breton could traverse France in his lorry and with a fistful of francs, purchase a field whereon to park his lorry, call it home, and demand a telephone line from the state-owned PTT. Their pledge was then to connect anyone within 48 hours. And they did. What this cost in staffing levels or logistics did not enter into the equation. The quality of a public service was judged on its, er, quality. The cost to the consumer was the same to all, regardless of supply side cost.

In addition to his telephone line, he was automatically entrusted with France's very own precursor of the internet, a Minitel terminal. Along with French Railways, the envy of the world.

But the envy of the world came at a price. The PTT, (Post, Telegraphs and Telephones), along with all the other public services, utilities, transport, health, education, pensions, were manned by as many workers as it took to provide a consistent level of service across the country, all hired on ironclad lifetime contracts and backed by strong unions.

This was way back then, in 1986, when the top tax rate was, I believe, 70%. So there were obviously some less public-spirited bods who may have thought the envy of the world came at too high a price.
Your average Frenchman, though, was justifiably proud of his country's progress, and the services provided by his republic for its citizens. He felt in some sense a participant, if not a shareholder in the public enterprise. Railworkers, teachers and nurses were the salt of this republic's earth.

Fast forwarding to the present, my neighbour did up a house in the village and applied for a telephone line. The nearest point of connection was less than a meter away. A meter, not a kilometer. Over two months later, technicians arrived and he has his line. They combine other jobs in the vicinity to make it worthwhile coming the extra mile.

Services that used to be judged purely on excellence, are now evaluated for ROI. Village post offices are closing down while the cost of a stamp soars, hospitals are being regrouped, even as ambulance services to get to them are being slashed.

In the meantime, following EU directives on competition and mirroring Britain's lead in shedding its public sector, French public services have been privatised, split up, renamed and repackaged in a bewildering succession of redesigned logos. What used to belong to the citizen now belongs to private shareholders. As before, you buy your electricity from the same old, mainly nuclear-powered, national grid, but you get to choose among four different companies to bill you. Shareholders of these companies are onto a good risk-free number, since retired or failing power stations will be sold off for a nominal euro to a cleanup company funded by the taxpayer.

Taxes for the rich now top out at 40%, and new loopholes abound, so they're happy.

I haven't been to enough of these debates to give you a comprehensive list of everything that has gone downhill since 1986, even if that were interesting. Yellow Vest rage has not yet rallied around a single theme or direction.

But I do get an overall impression that if the country could crawfish back to 1986, if the republic could be returned to its citizens, if the small shops and restaurants annihilated by social charges could be brought back, if the default speed limit were 100 again, the Yellow Vests would have done their job. Unfortunately, between EU directives and the monetary straitjacket of the Euro, added to the vested interests of those now in power, that ain't gonna happen. To look back and want to undo the mistakes of the past thirty years might seem quite sensible. But you would get branded a supporter of the extremist left.