Germany admired the French
To tout its cars to French consumers, Renault has found nothing better than to tell them all the good we think of the Rhine: "The Germans had never worn if the colors of the Renault group," proclaims a full-page advertisement inserted recently in several major newspapers. And a huge flag Germanic, where the yolk was replaced by the orange Renault, is quoted the testimony of three magazines giving high marks to the products of the firm to diamond.
In a completely different note, our brother Le Monde has published a major survey of its specialist art entitled "The German art is greater" (sic).Dealing with three exhibitions held this fall in Paris (Baselitz, Lüpertz and Richter), journalist and university Philippe Dagen highlights the quality of their training, the dynamism of their collectors and regionalization of their art centers, ensuring competition . After having watered three centuries of sublime music, will they outdo us again?
The admiration of Germany has become the national sport on the left bank of the Rhine. "It will take time to go to a joint work, we must move towards a common retirement age, it will move towards convergence of economic and social organization of our two countries," recommended last month François Fillon, in a speech at Matignon.The Prime Minister handed "the price of creative audacity!" The finger of suspicion towards the merger, given the respective performances, 150 billion trade surplus with them, 75 billion deficit at home, 6.9% unemployment there, by 9.2%. And then this terrible figure, which summarizes and explains its own precedents: from Munich to Hamburg, we continue to manufacture 5.3 million cars, with no change in recent years, while French car production fell by 3.2 2 million in five years.
Our guide would rather "fear of the police"
For their part, manufacturers are Germanic full of praise that they braid.Witness the latest ad Opel France on the radio on the bottom of a thundering speech in the language of Goethe, this comment means voice-over: "No need to understand German to know that Opel is German quality. "
Narcissism which the Germans, like all people, are tempted to succumb long history. Just remember the famous phrase of Richard Wagner: "To be German means to do something for herself." Taste for work well done. The composer of Bayreuth, revered by the French intellectual circles of the second half of the nineteenth century despite the defeat of 1870, speaking at a time when industrialization took off in all Europe bad credit personal loan lenders. Wagner wanted to stigmatize the mercantile spirit and the Anglo-Saxon capitalism. The industrial Germanic still close artisans described in his opera The Maîtrbaes Singers, the contrary does not care that the quality of its products.National competition of capitalism was raging. So much so that London had mandated in 1887 to register the trademark "Made in Germany" on products from Berlin. It was a way to deter British consumers to buy them. In vain, because they had quickly perceived the letters as a synonym for excellence.
Reforms "imposed" in Brussels
Our current debates on the tropism of both industrial and financial capital of others have nothing new. It is tempting to attribute the course to specific national cultural roots. The philosopher and sociologist Theodor Adorno, hardly suspected of complacency vis-à-vis the countries that had pushed him into exile, invoked "the great German ideas that celebrate independence with excitement, the purity of the things that the we only for themselves. "
The French seem all the more admirable that such principles are totally foreign. Our guide would rather "fear of the police" that the search for autonomy. Our drivers are less concerned about road safety control radars. Our governments are concerned with reducing budget deficits to meet the rating agencies and the "Maastricht criteria". The reforms we are "imposed" in Brussels, says it for ages. The euro was sold to the public as a "shield" and not as an instrument of independence, etc..
Renault advertisers are part of a powerful ideological trend in France when they refer to the standards of the Rhine. That Germany is a reference-ministerial in Paris, it is called "benchmark" – is obvious, considering its size and its results.That we should draw on the successes of others is also clear. But can we trace our tax on Germany not adjust the level of public spending (over 10% of GDP at home)? Lack of guiding principles, we simply stack the remedies indiscriminately. "Against unemployment, we tried everything!" Claimed pathos with François Mitterrand. One wonders if Wagner had not just right when he treated the French as "monkey people" (1864).
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