{"id":6893,"date":"2011-10-06T22:54:02","date_gmt":"2011-10-07T02:54:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingottawa.ca\/?p=6893"},"modified":"2013-01-21T09:07:44","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T14:07:44","slug":"cities-with-no-highways-and-highways-with-no-debt-whats-wrong-with-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2011\/10\/06\/cities-with-no-highways-and-highways-with-no-debt-whats-wrong-with-france\/","title":{"rendered":"Cities with no highways and highways with no debt: what’s wrong with France?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
State-run high-speed train running beside privately-operated autoroute: the French do things differently<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The question you see often posed with some bewilderment in Canada and the U.S. is\u00a0 – what is the matter with the French?\u00a0 Why can\u2019t they get it right?\u00a0 Why can\u2019t they get rid of their unions?\u00a0 Why can\u2019t they lower their agricultural tariffs and reduce their rich public services? \u00a0Don\u2019t they know they can\u2019t afford their school, heath, rail systems? \u00a0What\u2019s the matter with them?<\/p>\n

The temptation when responding is to promenade from factoid to factoid.\u00a0 I notice this whenever I write about some recent sustainability innovation in France, the Mia electric car, the Bordeaux city electric trams and now of course, the recently introduced electric-sharing car, the \u2018blue car\u2019 in Paris.\u00a0 Where billionaire investor Vincent Bollor\u00e9 has teamed up with Mayor Bertrand Delanoe to give Parisiens the car equivalent of their \u2018velolib\u2019 service.<\/p>\n

The \u2018blue car\u2019 is a subcompact that has a range of 250 kilometers on one charge with a top speed 130 km.\u00a0 The Bollor\u00e9 group has spent 1.5 billion euros to develop their new lithium, metal-polymer battery to power the cars. One of the returns they hope from \u2018autolib\u2019 is that it will promote and popularize their new battery.<\/p>\n

But nations are more than a collection of differing factoids.\u00a0 How is that the folks who live in Bordeaux can choose expensive trams powered by underground wiring and the folks in Ottawa can\u2019t even get a tram?\u00a0\u00a0 How is that Charles DeGaulle one of the most Conservative of Conservative French Presidents ever when asked by the private sector to build super highways across the country, similar to Ontario\u2019s 401 and 400 series responded:\u00a0 \u201cIf you want fast highways for your big trucks, you build them and toll them.\u00a0 We already have a national road system \u2013 the N series.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a true Conservative decision which is \u2018pay as you go\u2019 not \u2018borrow as you go\u2019 and it has had a massive economic and social impact on France. \u00a0\u00a0It has meant that the tax payer has not been burdened with the enormous costs of operating these six lane roadways.\u00a0 It\u2019s also meant that there are less of them because they have to pay for themselves.\u00a0 Most importantly, the massive dislocations that have ripped through the hearts of Canadian cities like Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto\u2019s with six\/eight lane highways built right across the centres of our cities very rarely happens in France because they\u2019re just too expensive to build.<\/p>\n

It is very tempting to move from one interesting \u2018factoid\u2019 to another when comparing France to Canada or the U.S., but nations are \u2018emergent\u2019 phenomenon, not static accomplishments i.e.\u00a0 you can\u2019t box them up into a neat little series of \u2018initiatives\u2019 and label one France and the other Canada.\u00a0\u00a0 Nations emerge from a long series of interconnected phenomena which no collection of factoids will ever explain.<\/p>\n

France\u2019s political philosophy, \u2018liberty, equality and fraternity\u2019 is a very different political philosophy from \u2018life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness\u2019 south of the border or \u2018peace, order and good government\u2019 to the north.\u00a0 Neither North American philosophies mention \u2018equality or fraternity\u2019.\u00a0 This has consequences.\u00a0 It would not be acceptable to French society that 1 percent of the population controlled 90 per cent of the wealth.\u00a0 It would not be acceptable to French society that their tax dollars subsidized agri-business while the small farmer was hung out to dry as is happening right now in Canada with the dissolution of the Canadian Wheat Board.<\/p>\n

This is a current political factoid, but is a good illustration of a decades old Canadian policy supported by all parties which has put the small Canadian farmer behind the corporate world.\u00a0 What\u2019s wrong with France?\u00a0 Well, nothing, it\u2019s just different.\u00a0 France has subsidized and supported its smaller farmers because that\u2019s where the ideas of \u2018equality\u2019 and \u2018fraternity\u2019 push national policies.\u00a0 American and Canadian political philosophies push us towards supporting large extractive industries of which agri-business and the Tar Sands are two examples.<\/p>\n

One of the things that I have learned in my travels is that our present economic and sustainability problems will not be solved with better factoids.\u00a0\u00a0 National and local rail systems, small farmers, auto share, \u2018pay as you go\u2019, public education, a fairer share of national wealth and so on don\u2019t happen by magic.\u00a0 They arise from national and personal philosophies which make them attractive and important to the people who pay for and live with them.<\/p>\n

photo by Gasdub<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The question you see often posed with some bewilderment in Canada and the U.S. is\u00a0 – what is the matter with the French?\u00a0 Why can\u2019t they get it right?\u00a0 Why can\u2019t they get rid of their unions?\u00a0 Why can\u2019t they lower their agricultural tariffs and reduce their rich public services? \u00a0Don\u2019t they know they can\u2019tContinue reading “Cities with no highways and highways with no debt: what’s wrong with France?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7083,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5302],"tags":[4009,4012,3215,687,4010,4014,3882,484,3967,3969,1417,865,4016,4013,1109,4015,729,677,394,973,1995,4011,4017,421,680,4008],"class_list":["post-6893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","tag-bertrand-delanoe","tag-blue-car","tag-bordeaux","tag-canada","tag-canadian-wheat-board","tag-car-equivalent","tag-charles-degaulle","tag-clive-on-cities","tag-electric-car","tag-eur","tag-farmer","tag-france","tag-introduced-electric-sharing-car","tag-local-rail-systems","tag-mayor","tag-metal-polymer-battery","tag-montreal","tag-ontario","tag-ottawa","tag-paris","tag-public-services","tag-rail-systems","tag-small-farmer","tag-toronto","tag-united-states","tag-vincent-bollore"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCities with no highways and highways with no debt: what's wrong with France? 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