The Headline
…is hilarious.
French industry warns of brain drain
The article? Not so much.
If Ségolène Royal is elected president in May it will trigger an exodus of people from France’s financial and biotechnology sectors to London and other foreign cities, according to some of the country’s top business leaders.
The warning – fuelled by fears that the Socialist candidate would raise taxes for the highest earners and biggest companies – came as it emerged that the number of people fleeing the country’s onerous wealth tax doubled between 2003 and 2005.
Each day France loses two people who pay its wealth tax, representing a loss of €2.2bn ($2.9bn, £1.5bn) of taxable assets for the government in 2005, according to a senate finance committee report.
“If Ségolène Royal wins, we will go back to the situation we had with Mitterrand between 1981 and 1983. But it would be three-times worse,” said the chairman of one CAC 40 company, referring to François Mitterrand, the last leftwing president of France.
World Stuff | tree hugging sister | 
February 15, 2007 11:19 am
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Bring. It. On. I work with three excellent Frenchies who left because of this kind of crap. The husband of one of them said “France is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.” So he doesn’t.
If this sort of idiocy is not checked, in the 100 years the intelligence differential between Americans and the rest of the world is going to become measurable, and racial mixing is going to add its effects via hybrid vigor and allowing wider choices of mates for the upper levels of intelligence. I’m contributing to that: I married a (very) smart first generation immigrant.
This is also going to strengthen American society by making racism largely irrelevant over time: my daughter is eleigible to join the DAR, and my son can join the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Both have Chinese first names, so it should send the powers-that-be in those organizations into fits of apoplexy. But my grandkids’ generation won’t even notice.
Bloody French.
The most anomalous part of the story is the French people will vote him in.
Colin – I think that has a lot to do with that brain drain thing; it’s a spiral effect.
Isn’t Segolene a woman? Anyway, I always thought the French were the ultimate pragmatists, and my bet is on Sarkozy when all is said and done.
Sarkozy has the edge in the polls. Even some of the reliably leftist intelligencia are swinging to Sarkozy.
100 Car-B-Q’s a day, every day, has to wake up some of the much brained leftists.
She is a woman, but she’s still French.