15th April 2018

Some 46 years ago, the British trades unions were in full cry. Maggie, Maggie, Maggie - out, out, out! Who could forget? Certainly not me back then in a cold house without heat nor light, no rubbish collection nor even burial services! Today in France, President Macron is studying exactly how Mrs Thatcher turned things around. On the one hand he was elected as a man of the people in a country steeped in die-hard trade unionism. On the other, he’s a committed European, wanting to match Germany’s famed efficiency step by step. But how to change the unions without getting his head cut off? He knows he’s right. As a symbol of post-war regeneration, the rail union SNCF, for example, remains a bastion of unionised labour, heavily subsidised despite being currently c.50bn euros in debt! Yet still the union insists on a retirement age of 52! Bon chance M. Macron. Let’s hope the banlieus don’t soon resound to the cry Mannie, Mannie, Mannie - sortez, sortez, sortez!