The French have a great knack of fouling things up. First it was the Sykes-Picot act which worked out marvelously for us in the Arab world. Then it was their insistence that the Germans paid a back breaking amount in reparations to the victors of WW I that lead directly to WW II. This was generously followed up by the Vichy government in France that thought serving the Nazi party was good. Not to be outdone, the French victors of WW II, under De Gaulle, decided that Algeria was a part of France that they would never give up and that cost Algeria a seventh of their population. See the record? Then, just when we saw a great revolution in the French mentality that went overboard to correct all the evils of their past by championing human rights and trying to take a balanced approach in the Middle East, they went and elected Sarkozy as President.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not anti French. I love their lifestyle, their culture of taking a stand no matter what others think and I think that some French companies are some of the best the business world has ever seen. Giants such as AXA in insurance, TOTAL and Technip in oil and gas, Dessault in Aeronautical, JCDecaux in outdoor advertising, Publicis in total advertising, Renault/Peugeot/Citroen in Cars, SUEZ and Vivendi in water treatment, L ‘Oriel and GRANIER are but a few global names that pop to mind when one talks of excellence in business management. They even have two of the world’s greatest universities in the Sorbonne and INSEAD. Yet for all their great business sense, the French seem to have an uncanny ability to shoot themselves in the foot.

Prior to the economic crisis that struck the globe, anyone silly enough to believe that he or she would enjoy great service in a Parisian hotel just needed to visit one to discover that that was an exercise in futility. The look that said, “why are you bothering me?” and that classical French expression “pffft!” that needs to be seen to be believed were part and parcel of Parisian life. I am told that this is not true of the rest of France but I have always heard the French say that France is Paris so go figure. After the crisis, the French Hoteliers quickly adjusted themselves faster than any of their European counterparts and as a result of that were quick to reap the benefits of tourists still flocking into their capital of culture. People smiled and even talked English; a rare possibility in the pre-crisis era.

Now, after this fantastic progress where even I, and solid Anglophile, were singing their praise, had to stop and ponder what happened? As I am sure that you know, the French parliament have resoundingly passed a law banning the burqa on the basis of either security or the silly idea of non-integration. The issue of security was a non-starter as no one accepted it as a real reason. The other, going against what is French, is nothing more than a hidden message to the 10% population of France that they are not wanted even though the ban would apply to no more than 2000 French citizens. Now we get to the problem. Over 70 million people visit France a year. If 10% of that were from Muslim countries and 10% of that wore the burqa that would mean a ban for over 700,000 visitors to France. If you consider the amount of money that they spend per day and if you consider that most of them would be from the Gulf with a high disposition to spend, that would be a horrendous loss in economical terms let alone the cost in political one. Who knows for sure what that will cost French companies in the Muslim world in terms of contracts which are quite lucrative ones I might add? While no one would publically say that this was the reason a French company might lose out on a contract, how many key players whose wife might be offended by this law, might influence her husband to “think twice” before signing? Please do not discount this factor just because it doesn’t show on the company’s chart.

Yes indeed the French have a great ability in making themselves persona non-grata to the world without anyone’s help.

I do hope that better sense will prevail and that such a ludicrous law that suggests that women are too stupid to choose for themselves what they want and need the nanny state to show them the way will be rescinded.
The French pride themselves, quite rightly in the recent past, as the bastion of good sense and human rights. I do hope that they will live up to it.