Joan of Arc would be proud. Edith Cresson, France’s first woman Prime Minister, has taken office with a vow to lead the country into a battle whose outcome will be as fateful as any fought by the Maid of Orleans. "There’s a world economic war going on, and France is not waging it," Cresson warned last year. Now the combative Prime Minister is preparing an offensive to create jobs at home, win markets abroad and keep France in the economic fight. "We are confronted," she says, "with the need to build a balanced Europe, where France is as strong as Germany." Turning to Japan, she warns, "I don’t want hundreds of thousands of jobs to disappear, and to lose our technology and means of wealth."
Fighting words at a time when the French, more than ever before, are obsessed with their ability to com- pete in the global marketplace. Despite illustrations of daring technological progress, such as the TGV and, earli- er, the Concorde, "the French really have an industrial inferiority complex," says Paul Goldschmidt, head of Bain & Co., a consulting firm in Pads. Whether that complex is deserved or not, the French see the powerhouse of a united Germany looming large in a Europe destined to become the world’s biggest single market in 1993. Glancing over their shoulders, they look at Italy advancing fast as an economic challenger, its industries quick to exploit market niche. Scanning the horizon, the French are aware of a U.S. reeonquering lost export markets even as the Japanese continue their relentless drive for global economic pre-eminence. "We don’t want to end up the Mezzogiorno (意大利南部地区) of Europe," frets Cresson.
There is little chance of that happening. The world’s fourth largest economy, with a gross national product of $956 billion, is far from becoming an also-ran. Its companies sell nuclear power plants to Asia, high-speed train systems to the U.S. and Europe, and battle-tested military hardware like the Exocet missile worldwide, French finns are engaged in the gamut of aerospace activity, from missiles for space probes to computerized cockpits for commercial aircraft. They are inventive as well as innovative, patenting, among other things, the radial tire and the hydraulic suspension that makes every Citroen a four-wheeled water bed. They are proud that a Renault-built Formula One car can beat out the seemingly unstoppable Honda-powered McLaren of Ayrton Senna in Grand Prix racing. They are equally pleased that Airbus Industries, the French-led European consortium is giving American companies a run for their money in the competition to sell civilian airlines.
Still, Cresson & Co. are right to be concerned. Behind the upbeat economic factors and the prestige of many French products loom some numbers that point to disturbing weaknesses in the economic fabric. French industry is good at many things but maddeningly incapable of deciding where to focus its efforts, thanks to what the daily Liberation describes as a touche-a-tout economy-finger in every pie. Thus there are few areas of real dominance, such as the Germans have in luxury cars and machine tools.
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