http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2254565/Lights-turned-France-save-money-sobriety.html
Lights to be turned off in France to save money and show 'sobriety'
- Paris may go dark in the early hours of the morning if new plans go ahead
- Traders fears the blackout would negatively affect tourism and the economy
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Paris may lose its trademark glow next year after plans emerged to extinguish its street lighting at night to save money.
French President Francois Hollande and his energy minister Delphine Batho are considering turning out the lights in and outside public buildings, offices and shops in the early hours of the morning.
If the scheme goes ahead, late-night revellers in the city would be advised to carry torches if they venture out between the hours of 1 and 7am.
The rules will also apply to other French cities, villages, and towns.
Batho said the measure would save energy and money, and show 'sobriety', although the plan has proved unpopular with traders.
It follows on from a new rule last July which businesses to turn off neon lights between 1 and 6am, which was introduced as part of the French government's bid to improve its energy efficiency by 20 percent by 2020.
But the proposal was not popular with businesses, who believe that it could kill trade and discourage tourists.
'Visitors and locals follow the light, from one spot to another, all night long,' French chef and culinary consultant Didier Quemener told Quartz.
Leader: Francois Hollande is considering a scheme to turn off the lights in France to save energy
'My clients don’t want to be in the dark in the City of Light.'
France was visited by more than 81 million tourists in 2011 and the tourism industry employs some 900,000 people, according to government figures cited by Bloomberg.com.
Fearing for the impact on the economy, vice-president of France’s Commerce Council, Sofy Mulle, told Bloomberg there must be a better way.
He said: 'Surely we can work out environmentally friendly solutions that have less impact on our society and economy.'
The plan is already in effect at the city’s more than 300 churches, bridges, and monuments, including the Eiffel Tower.
'One of our main objectives is to change the culture,' energy Minister Batho told a French TV station.
'We need to end the cycle of producing more because we are consuming more. There should be sobriety in energy use.'
http://www.testosteronepit.com/home/2012/12/28/blowing-up-the-transfer-of-french-nuclear-technology-to-chin.html
Blowing Up: The Transfer Of French Nuclear Technology To China
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2012 AT 5:40PM
Technology transfers, whether on a contractual basis or through theft, have long bedeviled companies that want to benefit from China’s cheap labor and 1.3 billion consumers. Automakers, aerospace companies, technology outfits.... it’s the price they have to pay. But when it seeped out that the largely state-owned nuclear industry in France was trying to sell its secrets to China to make a deal, oh là là!
That the French have been through this with their high-speed train technology, the TGV, was hammered home on Wednesday when China opened the world’s longest high-speed rail line—1,428 miles between Beijing and Guangzhou. It extended the high-speed rail network to 5,800 miles. And the network will practically double over the next three years if government funding continues to flow. By comparison, it will take the US, or more precisely California, an unknown number of years, perhaps as many as 20, to complete the link between San Francisco and Los Angeles [California’s High-Speed Rail to Nowhere].
On the Beijing-Guangzhou line, trains will run at a maximum speed of 186 mph, specs that the TGV mastered decades ago. Initially, China struggled to develop its own technology. After it tripped badly, it decided to import some trains, and the missing technology, from Japan, Germany, and France.
They all got a piece of the pie. Alstom of France won an order for 60 sets of its latest tilt-technology trains, the Pendolino. Three were delivered fully assembled; six were delivered in kits and assembled by an entity of China National Rail; and the remainder were manufactured in China with some imported components and a lot of transferred technology. And that was mostly it for TGV sales in China. Now, China has the ability to manufacture its own trains. It’s pushing the technology to the next level. And it will become a formidable anywhere in the world, even in California.
Nuclear energy—where France has also been proudly on the forefront—was going to be next. Until the scandal of massive nuclear-technology transfers broke into the open. The central figure, Henri Proglio, CEO of mega-utility EDF that owns France’s 58 active nuclear reactors but derives almost half of its revenues from outside France, has come underinvestigation by the Inspector General of Finance (IGF). Of particular interest: the agreement to sell nuclear and industrial secrets and know-how to China in order to conclude a deal that had been “aborted.”
On Thursday, the government announced that it would try to shed some light on the relationship between the French nuclear industry and its Chinese partners. And on Friday, it was leaked that the government, which owns 84.4% of EDF, will sack Proglio in February or March and replace him with the CEO of state-owned railroad SNCF, Guillaume Pépy, who immediately denied being “candidate for anything.” The revolving door of state-owned companies.
The intrigue goes back years. In January 2012, during the presidential campaign, a confidential agreement bubbled up, signed in Beijing on April 29, 2010, by Proglio and He Yu, the CEO of China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group (CGNPC). It envisioned a tight partnership concerning the “design” of nuclear reactors and the transfer of nuclear technologies—to the point where Chinese specialists would be associated with the construction of reactors ... in France.
The Socialists, including Jean-Marc Ayrault who would become Prime Minister, raised a ruckus: A Chinese company might soon build nuclear power plants in France? Areva, the government-owned nuclear conglomerate and crown jewel of French nuclear technology, might soon have to compete with a Chinese company for reactors in France? A shock too many for the battered “Made in France,” which had become a campaign issue.
Then, on April 19, 2012, just three days before the presidential elections, after more embarrassing details made it into the media, Finance Minister François Baroin put a hold on that contract. Turns out, apparently, EDF would hand over secrets about France’s entire stock of nuclear power plants to the Chinese. Nevertheless, in October, after the storm had settled, EDF, Areva, and CGNPC signed a contract. It remains confidential. Nothing has leaked out.
The unions were particularly worried. They demanded transparency concerning the technology transfers. They feared the effects on employment in the nuclear energy industry. They feared that much of it might shift to China.
Now, the government might be having second thoughts. The IGF is intensely interested in the first agreement between EDF and CGNPC that defined a partnership whose goal it was to build nuclear power plants together. The plants would be equipped with a new reactor type, the latest and greatest alternative to the catastrophically over-budget and now stalled European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) that Areva had been pushing for years. That EDF, which was mostly government-owned, could even envision a deal that would hurt Areva, which was wholly government-owned, was simply too galling.
Simultaneously, there was another fight in France. A tiny street-theater company decided to attack an evil American multinational giant. But there are complications: political connections, government subsidies, Coca-Cola commercialism, perhaps world domination, and awesome art. Read.... French Artists Strike Out Against Evil American Empire.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/27/french-budget-minister-swiss-account
French budget minister accused of hiding Swiss bank account
Jérôme Cahuzac denies claims of Mediapart investigative website that he held secret account at UBS until 2010
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Jérôme Cahuzac, who is leading the French government's efforts to cut the deficit. Photograph: Eric Feferberg/AFP/Getty Images
The French government has come under increasing pressure over an allegation that its budget minister, who is heading Paris's crackdown on tax evasion, once held a secret Swiss bank account hidden from the French authorities.
Jérôme Cahuzac, 60, who is leading efforts by President François Hollande to cut the French deficit and streamline the budget, has repeatedly denied reports by the investigative website Mediapart that heheld an undisclosed account at the Swiss bank UBS for 20 years until 2010. He is suing the website for defamation.
"I don't have, I never have had, accounts abroad," Cahuzac told the French parliament before the end of its December session when the story first ran. He dismissed Mediapart's assertion that he had travelled to Switzerland to close the Geneva-based account and transfer money to Singapore just before he was made head of the parliamentary finance commission in February 2010.
Cahuzac, a former MP and surgeon specialising in plastic surgery and hair transplants, has become one of the government's big-hitters as Paris struggles to redress its crisis-hit economy. After the Mediapart allegations, he received the backing of the prime minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, who said he had "full confidence" in him. The Élysée has also stood by him.
But over the Christmas period the Cahuzac story has continued to dominate headlines as some newspapers suggested Hollande might have a cabinet reshuffle both to detract from the Mediapart allegations and to draw a line under government disagreements over the handling of France's crisis-hit steel industry. Several political analysts have since dismissed the idea of a reshuffle a mere seven months after Hollande took office.
The Socialist MP Olivier Faure told France 2 TV there was no concrete proof of the existence of a Swiss account of Cahuzac and that for now the "empty" allegations against the minister were "not very credible". He said if any irrefutable proof were ever produced then Cahuzac would be in difficulty and "would have to quit government", but for the moment nothing suggested the claims were true.
In 2010 Mediapart, which is run by veteran French newspaper and agency journalists, broke the story of an alleged party funding scandal around Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP party and the L'Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt. The website stood by its Cahuzac story, which it said was a question of "public morality" and the "exemplarity of a minister". It has called for an inquiry led by an independent judge.
The allegation against Cahuzac comes at a particularly sensitive time, as the government has increased income tax on the richest and criticised wealthy individuals, such as the actor Gérard Depardieu, who have sought to shift their tax base abroad.
Mediapart published a recording in which Cahuzac is alleged to be talking to his wealth manager about his embarrassment over the Swiss bank account in 2000. In the recording, a voice said to be Cahuzac's says: "What bothers me is that I still have an account open with UBS … UBS is not necessarily the most hidden of banks."
The conversation was said to have been taped inadvertently by Michel Gonelle, a barrister and one-time political opponent of Cahuzac in his south-western constituency. Gonelle has since called the Élysée to say the recording is authentic. Mediapart said Cahuzac had not issued legal proceedings over the recording, but the budget minister had told French radio journalists that it was not his voice.
Cahuzac remains in his government post and there is no sign of him moving.
The finance ministry denied another recent Mediapart report that its tax inspectors were investigating Cahuzac's French assets. In a statement, the ministry said the public finances directorate was examining the tax situation of all government members as a matter of "routine", with the aim of "ensuring that the position of every government member is irreproachable".
The finance ministry added: "No inspection or investigation is in progress with regard to any government member."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/26/france-leeway-deficit-target-imf?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487
France needs more leeway to meet deficit targets, suggests IMF
EU target of 3% of GDP less pressing for François Hollande than cutting excess from public finances, says IMF mission chief
François Hollande, the president of France, intends belt-tightening measures and raised taxes for companies. Photograph: Bertrand Langlois/AFP/Getty Images
Fresh evidence that France, which is hanging on to the last of its AAA credit ratings, could be given some leeway on deficit targets emerged on Wednesday.
The International Monetary Fund said the country should be more concerned about the credibility of its efforts to cut back on flab in public finances than whether it met the EU's 3% of gross domestic product target for the budget deficit immediately.
The comments by the IMF's mission chief, Edward Gardner, came after the Washington-based fund forecast this month that France would miss its 2013 target for a deficit of 3% of gross domestic product, estimating that it was on course for 3.5% as a result of weaker than expected growth.
Gardner also warned against more tax rises as these could further hold back economic growth. The top rate is being raised to 75%, prompting the actor Gérard Depardieu to announce his removal to Belgium.
Fitch is the only large ratings agency which still considers France to have a top-notch rating. Moody's and Standard & Poor's stripped the country of its AAA status during the year.
Gardner said that to meet the 3% target the Socialist government would have to carry out even more belt tightening than already planned. This would affect growth which was already likely to be subdued.
Gardner said: "Our recommendation is that France discuss the fact in a broader European context [about what would be] the appropriate stance for 2013.
"Whether it's 3% or 3.5% matters less than whether the government can give credible assurances about the direction of policy.
"Our preferred policy is not to take any additional measures at this stage. The path to a balanced budget over the medium term is credible."
Eager to bolster his fiscal credibility, France's president, François Hollande, has already pledged a belt-tightening effort unprecedented in modern France in order to reach the deficit target.
However, he is also returning the state retirement age to 60; his predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, had raised it to 62.
At the same time, the government is raising taxes for the wealthiest firms and large companies.
The latest signs that France could be given some leeway came as the yen fell to its lowest level against the dollar for two years as the government of recession-hit Japan was formally sworn in.
Shinzo Abe, the country's seventh prime minister in six years, has promised to launch a bold series of economic measures to pull Japan out of deflation and its fifth recession in 15 years.
In November, the French government reacted angrily when the front cover of the Economist magazine described France as the "time bomb at the heart of Europe" because of its high public spending and unemployment, and called on Hollande to do more to reform the economy.
There are signs though that Brussels is preparing to show some patience with France – and others.
The Spanish newspaper El País reported on Saturday that the European commission would propose that Spain, France and several other eurozone countries be given more time to cut their public deficits below the target limit of 3% of GDP.
French court rejects 75 percent millionaires' tax
PARIS |
(Reuters) - France's Constitutional Council on Saturday rejected a 75 percent upper income tax rate to be introduced in 2013 in a setback to Socialist President Francois Hollande's push to make the rich contribute more to cutting the public deficit.
The Council ruled that the planned 75 percent tax on annual income above 1 million euros ($1.32 million) - a flagship measure of Hollande'selection campaign - was unfair in the way it would be applied to different households.
Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said the government would redraft the upper tax rate proposal to answer the Council's concerns and resubmit it in a new budget law, meaning Saturday's decision could only amount to a temporary political blow.
While the tax plan was largely symbolic and would only have affected a few thousand people, it has infuriated high earners in France, prompting some such as actor Gerard Depardieu to flee abroad. The message it sent also shocked entrepreneurs and foreign investors, who accuse Hollande of being anti-business.
Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said the rejection of the 75 percent tax and other minor measures could cut up to 500 million euros in forecast tax revenues but would not hurt efforts to slash the public deficit to below a European Union ceiling of 3 percent of economic output next year.
"The rejected measures represent 300 to 500 million euros. Our deficit-cutting path will not be affected," Moscovici told BFM television. He too said the government would resubmit a proposal to raise taxes on high incomes in 2013 and 2014.
The Council, made up of nine judges and three former presidents, is concerned the tax would hit a married couple where one partner earned above a million euros but it would not affect a couple where each earned just under a million euros.
UMP member Gilles Carrez, chairman of the National Assembly's finance commission, told BFM television, however, that the Council's so-called wise men also felt the 75 percent tax was excessive and too much based on ideology.
FRANCE UNDER SCRUTINY
Hollande shocked many by announcing his 75 percent tax proposal out of the blue several weeks into a campaign that some felt was flagging. Left-wing voters were cheered by it but business leaders warned that talent would flee the country.
Set to be a temporary measure until France is out of economic crisis, the few hundred million euros a year the tax was set to raise is a not insignificant sum as the government strives to boost public finances in the face of stalled growth.
Hollande's 2013 budget calls for the biggest belt-tightening effort France has seen in decades and is based on a growth target of 0.8 percent, a level analysts view as over-optimistic.
Fitch Ratings this month affirmed its triple-A rating on France but said there was no room for slippage. Standard & Poor's and Moody's have both stripped Europe's No. 2 economy of its AAA badge due to concern over strained public finances and stalled growth.
The International Monetary Fund recently forecast that France will miss its 3 percent deficit target next year and signs are growing that Paris could negotiate some leeway on the timing of that goal with its EU partners.
The INSEE national statistics institute this week scaled back its reading of a return to growth in the third quarter to 0.1 percent from 0.2 percent, and the government said it could review its 2013 outlook in the next few months.
Saturday's decision was in response to a motion by the opposition conservative UMP party, whose weight in fighting Hollande's policies has been reduced by a leadership crisis that has split it in two seven months after it lost power.
The Constitutional Council is a politically independent body that rules on whether laws, elections and referenda are constitutional.
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