THE crisis at EADS, the European aerospace and defence group, is likely to comfort French public opinion in its deepening euroscepticism and its traditional hostility to the free market economy.
The stock options exercised by Noël Forgeard, the joint chief executive of EADS, are being seen as proof of the evils of the “Anglo-Saxon ultra- liberalism” that is invading Europe. In addition, delays in Airbus’s A380 superjumbo, which are being accompanied by Franco-German squabbling over who is to blame, are undermining a project viewed in France as one of Europe’s few achievements in recent years.
The damage is on a par with the extraordinary media and political hype that accompanied the launch of the superjumbo last year. President Chirac was joined by Gerhard Schröder, Tony Blair and thousands of well-wishers in Toulouse, southwest France, to watch its first flight. French television scrapped its usual programmes to broadcast the event. Politicians said that the aircraft’s maiden voyage would swing French voters behind the European constitution in the referendum in May 2005.
They were wrong. With the French increasingly convinced that the European Union has become a vehicle for capitalism, the constitution was rejected. Opponents said that they wanted une Europe sociale — an ill-defined concept that involves union rights, harmonised welfare and taxes and tighter restrictions on free enterprise.
Such opinions are widespread. In a recent survey of 20 countries, the French expressed greater hostility to the free market economy than any other nation, including Nigeria, Turkey and China.
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The €2.5 million (£1.7 million) profit made by M Forgeard from exercising his stock options will reinforce this view, being taken as evidence of the fundamental flaws in the system. The general secretary of the left-wing Confédération Générale du Travail union said that M Forgeard’s earnings “beggared belief”.
The political fallout from the Airbus fiasco will also affect France’s vision of Europe and notably of its partner, Germany. The European aircraft manufacturer has been hailed in France as a tangible fruit of the Franco-German relationship, soaring into the skies to take on the United States, but that relationship soured when M Forgeard was appointed joint chief executive of EADS last year and promptly tried to gain complete control of the group for himself. He failed and had to share power with Tom Enders, the German co-chief executive. The bad blood has lingered.
The atmosphere worsened this week with M Forgeard and Arnaud Lagardère, EADS’s main private French shareholder, blaming Gustav Humbert, the German head of Airbus, for the chaos. Herr Humbert has won backing from his compatriots and notably from DaimlerChrysler, EADS’s German shareholder.
In France, the quarrel will be viewed as a further demonstration of the strains that exist in the Franco-German alliance.