15th blog for the economy of France

I came across nytimes.com once again and found an article that actually has to do with France and Germany. France and Germany have always been the part that kind of held up the European Union but lately these two countries have not been getting along due to problems with Greece and its issues with debt. Supposedly because of the Greek Debt crisis, it triggered Germany to become more resistant of the demands Europe has. France and Germany have been bumping heads on the policy concerning Russia, China, and Iran. Because of this, when it comes down to discussing European Foreign Policy, it becomes hard to talk about certain important issues.

France has always been a country that puts alot of effort trying to create unity and pride between the countries of Europe. Therefore, another reason France bumped heads with Germany was because Germany was not putting a large enough effort into helping Greece and the debt crisis.

A root of some of these issues comes from the currency, Euro. The French believe that the Euro is something that would benefit Europe, uniting them and bringing better times; where the Germans disagree. French wants a more European economic government while Germany does not want to give up the control of the economy.

It seems to me that at one time France and Germany once held up the European Union but after these critical problems, clearly these two countries will not be doing that while dealing with such differences.

14th blog for the economy of France

I was trying to find some more information on the economy of France and I tried to find some statistics and numbers to share with the rest of my classmates. I wanted to find a site that talked about the different aspects of France's economy. I came across an informative site from diplomatie.gouv.fr that had alot of different facts!

There are so many factors that make up the economy for France for example telecommunications, food industries,and transport.Of course the tourism and the finer things in life, aka the expensive goods, are also major helpers for the economy. Some of the expensive goods may include fashion items, leather goods, and wines. This article also talks about the agriculture as well. Here are some numbers that describes it! The estimate of people that work for the agriculure is 1,100,000 and some of their main produces are: Cereals, wine, milk, sugarbeet, and oilseeds. Livestock includes cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats.

What also makes up France's economy is the construction and civil engineering which contains 1,597,000 workers. 160,000 work for the fashion industry in some way. France is also the fourth largest exporter of cars. Which leads to transportation which is very important to France. Different types of transportation would include the road network, rail network, aviation, and merchant fleet. Also according to this site, in 2006, there was an estimate of 76 million tourists that had come to visit France, which could make it easy to say that France is the most visited country.

These were just from little facts that all come together to help in the economy of France!

Post #13 for the Economy of France...

Well, here I am to write another blog for the economy of France. Coming across nytimes.com, I found an article that mentioned how France for a little while was for the idea of creating a tax for carbon emissions with trying to help the environment a little more. Even though this was in thought for a while, France finally came to the decision of retiring the idea for now. They came to the conclusion that for now it would leave France with more of a disadavantage compared to the other surrounding countries.

There was meetings where Parliament discussed how France's environment and the policies concerning this needs to be on the same level with all the other countries. According to this article, it sounds like France was all for making these taxes on carbon emissions but that in reality, they just were not as prepared and that there was more time spent not getting anything done rather than accomplishing something. Now although there are several countries that have taken part in creating carbon taxes, there are also countries that just would not approve. Not all of the other members of the European Union would agree to this kind of plan.

This was a plan for France created by the President only to help financially with the benefits in order to better the environment of the country. Since France does have so many factors when it comes to the agriculture for example the farmers, truckers, and fishing fleets, it could have maybe been beneficial. Because of these people, there would have been certain benefits and discounts for these people since alot of these people do get around on vehicles that let out alot of carbon dioxide. I guess for now the government will let this idea slide but will try and bring this up again maybe in July. I suppose one's opinion would result from depending on how much he or she cares about the environment since this really is all for an attempt to better the environment of France.

12th post for the Economy of France

I came across another article from NYtimes.com that discusses how France is trying to raise manufacatoring. There was a meeting in the beginning of March that was held by the president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy. In this meeting there were discussions on how to prevent France's industry from decreasing. He discussed how he is trying to push companies to invest more in bettering their businesses and to keep more workers. Within the last 10 years, France has lost half a million manufactoring jobs.

The president seemed to be pretty focused on a few things and seemed like he was going to put them straight into action. Some things would be having two representatives in companies with state shares. Bosses are going to have to get together a couple times a year in order to discuss future plans, improvements, and goals.

Another statistic that I learned in this article had to also do with the unemployment of France. France reached its "highest level when its unemployment jumped from 10 percent in the fourth quarter, the highest in 10 years". France has been going through a rough time lately trying to stay competitive. Because of this, France has thought about maybe taking what they make over seas in order to avoid the higher costs and rules back in their country.

Nicolas Sarkozy wraps up this meeting though by saying that everything that the industry produces should be raised by 25% between now and 2015 in order to help with their GDP.

11th post for the economy of France

For my tenth post on my blog, I was looking around for something to write about and found a site that pretty much gives an up-to-date status on the economy of France from the past couple years. The article is from www.theodora.com.

In this article, it discusses about how with the new year already here, France is trying to make the economy more reliable on market mechanisms. This article also included a few facts and statistics. It mentions how there are 75 million foreign tourists that come by to visit this country. Because of all its tourism, the income France receives makes it the third highest country in the world. France has also been able to recover from the global economic issues quicker than the other parts of the European Union. They were able to stay strong in their government and consumer spending. But in 2009, France's GDP decreased by 2.1%. In 2008, the unemployment rate was at 7.4% and increased to almost 10%.

In 2009, France wanted to help with the economic issues they were facing and to help, they passed a $35 billion stimulus plan. This money would help with the base foundation of the economy and special tax benefits for smaller businesses. The president of France also offered a $52 billion plan to help with science and technology.

10th post for the economy of france..

I was looking for another article to talk about France and came across another from nytimes.com. This one is about how the European Commission is trying to become more efficient with their energy by trying to utilize their nuclear power plants and to create safety standards. Also a plan of the European Commission is to eventually take these safety standards and share them with the rest of the world.

This article states that because of all this work it could be a good thing for France since they always try to sell technology more on the expensive side while other countries are trying to do the same but with cheaper alternatives. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is an organization that strives to bring all countries and their governments together economically and help growth in trade world wide along with many other goals. Jose Manuel Barroso, who is part of the OECD, said that the European Union really is the first to make the initiation to bring the world together for nuclear security.

In April, if all goes smoothly, Barack Obama will conduct a meeting where all world leaders will discuss the plans for nuclear security. Now this could also be a good thing for France because according the article France is the second largest producer of nuclear energy, after the United States. The French state is in control of a nuclear contractor called Areva which sells plants and such equipments to different countries across seas. Unfortunately though, it has not done too well in the past few months.

Just a picture of the European Union logo I thought I'd post!

9th for the Economy of France...

I was searching around for some more information on France's economy and came across the New York Times online, nytimes.com. Here, I found a site that talked about a company that has been around since 1690 and how France's government was able to keep this business around. They were also able to save 54 jobs that came with this company.

This company is called HB-Henriot in Quimper, France and they paint glazed earthenware by hand. It is one of the oldest companies of France but they were about lose their business when France's government came to the rescue. France held off the tax payments and gave money that would cover up to a month worth of salary for each worker. This was labor costs could be lowered and inventory without losing any employees.

They say that France has remained a strong economy compared to other countries, like Germany. Germany is very competitive, focusing alot on their exports. Which isnt the best way to be because when consumption decreased all over the world, Germany suffered.

This article claims that because of this situation with HB-Henriot, it shows that France can overcome economical issues and remain as one of the most stable economies in Europe. Another example of this would be in 2009 when France brought itself out of recession. France has always been a country that tries to save its companies. But no country is perfect and there is always room for some improvement which France is working on doing. The article mentions that now France's government to decrease growth in public spending to less than 1 percent a year from 2011.

A picture of the pottery this company creates!