The Collapse of the Frankenreich

Remember a couple of years ago when pundits here and abroad were telling us all that France was in the ascendency, that Europe would revolve around the Franco-German axis, that Bush and Blair's "blunders" were isolating the Anglo-Saxon powers from the rest of the world, for whom France presumably spoke, etc. Of course you do!

Well, the EU constitution is dead, world opinion is beginning to grudgingly realize that Bush and Bair might have been right all alonf, and France is imploding politically, economically, and culturally.

Note the Times' coverage of Tony Blair's recent speech outlining his plans for his presidency of the EU.

Mr Blair may not have stormed the Bastille, but wielding his motto “modernise or die”, he had stormed the temple of European federalism.

Disgruntled pro-Chirac French MEPs skulked at the back of the hall. After his speech setting out his plans for the European presidency and emphasising the need to modernise the EU and to divert its €50 billion (£33 billion) agriculture budget to industries of the future, one Spanish journalist ran out declaring: “I am convinced! He is absolutely right!”

....

Mr Blair had become the toast of Europe; ...he is being hailed as the natural leader of the continent: the only man who can save Europe from itself.

Italian politicians hailed Tony Blair’s vision of Europe, and declared that a new “Rome-London axis” would provide the driving force of the new EU, replacing the exhausted Franco-German motor. Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, said last night: “Europe must reform, as Prime Minister Blair says, and I am in total accord with him.” Piero Fassino, leader of the Democrats of the Left, the main opposition party, said that Mr Blair was charting the way for Europe. Antonio Polito, editor of the left-wing review Reformista, said: “The European Left must understand that it cannot remain attached forever to the Franco-German idea.”

Most worryingly for President Chirac and Herr Schröder is that their own countries’ newspapers fell under Mr Blair’s spell. The left-wing French newspaper Libération declared in its headline: “Blair’s new deal for Europe.” Its veteran Brussels correspondent, Jean Quatremer, said: “For a long time, we have been talking about the French social model, as opposed to the horrible Anglo-Saxon model, but we now see that it is our model that is a horror.” The country’s most influential newspaper, Le Monde, backed Mr Blair’s demand for a reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), calling for the partial “renationalisation” of farm aid so that EU countries pay part of the subsidies themselves. The paper declared that the only way to find the funds needed for EU research and technology was to cut spending on agriculture.

Germany’s professionally Europhile journalists have broken the taboo about challenging the Franco-German axis, and no longer risk charges of being unpatriotic if they support Mr Blair. The Berliner Zeitung proclaimed Mr Blair the new strongman of Europe. Die Welt declared: “The British sense of freedom strengthens Europe.”

This week’s revolution in Europe has transformed even the EU capital, Brussels, where analysts and commentators hailed the British conquest.

Read the whole thing here.

So Europe no longer revolves around France and Germany. What about France itself?

The Times also reports:

JACQUES CHIRAC may be engaged in an all-out assault on perfidious Albion, but French business has taken a wholly different approach.

According to a new study, a majority of big French companies has adopted English as the official language.

“Today, someone who does not know how to speak English is like someone who did not know how to read or write 50 years ago,” said the report from the French branch of Educational Testing Service (ETS) Europe, the language group.

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Among 26 of France’s most important firms questioned by ETS Europe, 16 gave English as their official working language. Of these, nine have dropped French altogether and seven have placed English and French on a level footing.

“This means that documents must be written in English,” said Bertrand Moneger, head of markets at ETS Europe-France. “And if there is one English speaker present at the meeting, then it must be held in English even if everyone else there is French.”

....

The report said: “An overwhelming majority of managers, if not all of them, use English daily as their working language and must switch indifferently from one language to another for meetings, e-mails and other workplace exchanges.”

A majority of the firms questioned said that the trend would accelerate. “In five or six years, most personnel managers think all official company documents will be in English.”

The survey also found that an ability to speak English was a basic employment criterion for managerial posts. Without it, applicants stood virtually no chance — whatever other qualifications they possessed. “English is no longer the optional extra . . . It is the minimum.”

Read the whole thing here.

This is huge. Fluency in English is now becoming essential to advancement within French corporations and this need will soon be reflected in school curricula. The next generation of French kids [assuming there is one, given their birthrate problems] will grow up speaking English. So much for French cultural superiority; it is going the way of it's pretentions to political dominance.