Tonight on The Brian Crombie Hour, Brian sits down with friend and advisor Pierre-Jean Esmieu-Fournel, a Paris-based financier whose life story and sharp analysis cut through the noise on Europe’s economic crisis. PJ shares his experience inside France’s welfare state including fully covered metastatic cancer treatment worth €320,000/year, and why the system is now at a breaking point, France's fiscal reality, and a political system in turmoil. He also discusses retirement ages, pension models, health-care tradeoffs, and demographic pressures hitting all three nations.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
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Speaker 2 (00:17):
No good evening, everyone, Welcome to the Brian Cromby Radio Hour.
What's going on in France politics. It seems like there's
a different prime minister nominated every week or so. You know,
a guy that I thought the President of France very
highly of, seems to be on the ropes. You know,
what's going on. And I think in addition to understanding
what's going on in France, it's a challenge that appears
(00:38):
to be duplicated in numerous other countries, whether it be
you know, Britain or the United States or Canada or elsewhere.
So understanding how France is dealing with their political upheaval,
where the market, the population seems to be splitting to
the left and to the right and not to the center,
I think is something that we need to understand. And
so I'm joined today by Pierre Jean Esimiel of Foniel Advisory.
(01:03):
He is a gentleman I've known for thirty years, well
maybe twenty twenty five years, and he's an investment banker.
He runs his own investment bank. He has worked for
major investment banks in Paris and London and New York previously.
He's working now on numerous different deals in Canada, United
States and in Europe. So I think he's got a
(01:23):
good read of what's going on in the world. So PJ,
Pierre Jean, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Welcome Brian. It's real pleasure to be hosted on your show.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
So what's going on in France, what's going on in Paris?
What's going on with your Sarcosey, who I thought was excellent.
I liked his policies.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
I'm going to get into that. But before I do so,
if I may my point what I'm going to try
to demonstrate over this presentation, I think it all comes
around the notion of welfare state. Welfare state as understand
to has implemented since nineteen forty eight in France, and
(02:06):
I think that's where the problem is. So before we
get into that, I like to give you just a
quick point which I'm going to explain to everyone the
particular situation in France versus Canada. As his dust As
you know, I got metastasy cancer, all right, So there's
(02:27):
a lot of costs bond by the community as a
result of this cancer. One of them, as an example,
is my main medicine, which is called dalo ratamida. It's
an amandotherapy. If I were to pay this treatment, it
would cost me fifty thousand dollars per annum. Another example,
(02:51):
my chemotherapy cost to the French state forty thousand dollars.
A last example, which it's got to be surprising, when
I went to the hospital to get my chemotherapy, my radiotherapy,
the assistant at the hospital went to me with a
(03:11):
blank form and say, hey, PJ, how did you travel
to the hospital? Well, travel by with my motorbike. I said,
that is fine. Just fill out this firm and the
state will give you one hundred dollars every time you
went to the hospital. We are used to a welfare.
(03:32):
Welfare state in France has got nothing to do with
what you know guys in the US, the overall cost
of my treatment to the community is three hundred and
twenty thousand US dollars annumal how much do I pay
on discust? What do you think, Brian, I must pay something?
(03:56):
Don't you think.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
I think you pay zero? It's covered by public health.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Care, I pay zero. Where it becomes funny, quote unquote,
I was diagnosed, I was given the status of a
disabled person because I got cancer. So I received every
single month on my bank account fifteen hundred US dollars.
(04:25):
What strikes me is that, in all this presentation that
I gave you very quickly and I can get into
more details, nobody is asking me to justify my income
because don't you think that if I were very rich,
the state should not pay for everything. And in particular,
(04:46):
do you think that if I were very rich, I
should not be entitled to this fifteen hundred US dollars
tax free every month. So France has been used to
a full coverage of anything that can happen to a
Frenchman during his professional life or his private life. So
(05:08):
it's about health, but it's also about protection when you
get fired. When you get fired, we get two years
of compensation from the state and it's lastly eighty percent
of what you use to win to earn what before retirement.
(05:31):
So the notion of protection in France is so much extended,
so much different, so much more when compared to our
friends in the US in Canada. Any by the way,
any other countries in Europe. One last point we're going
(05:51):
to get into that retirement retirement. The age for retirement
in France is sixty two years old, when in all
OISCD countries it is sixty seven. And we all know
that we cannot bone discuss because people get additional life,
(06:11):
get died later. Every quarter we earn another quarter of
extended life. So the system in France is not a
direct capitalization. In order to get your retirement, it is
paid by the state and it's because of the people
who are working now that are giving money to the
(06:33):
state in order to pay for the guy which are
in retirement now. So as the number of people working
in France will decrease over time when compared to the
one being covered for retirement, it doesn't work. Last example,
before I get to something else, in nineteen sixty we
(06:56):
had four people working for one guy in retire himend. Well,
guess what it's one point five now. So all that
is not understood by the population in summary, so much
so that what happened two years ago was outstanding. They
(07:16):
tried to reduce to increase the date for retirement, the
age for retirement, and we had what we call I
don't know if you heard about it, the yellow the
yellow jacket, so that were those people poor people, people
making less. A definition of poor in France is making
(07:36):
less than fifteen hundred dollars per month, so they were
on the street. The company was frozen for about two months,
which means that whenever you want to touch the welfare
state in France, you're in trouble because everybody goes to
the street even more than we do usually because you
know that in France we're going to strike very easily.
(07:57):
So that was my main point. And also in terms
of coverage, it is not well organized. I'm a bit
anxious about my cancer, so I want to do I
don't know if you know that the PSMA pet scan.
It's a full scan of your body and it's the
latest technology. Well a test like that costs to the
(08:21):
community five thousand US. Well, I do want every three
months because I got kids, I'm anxious, I want to
be really sure. So it's my own decision to do
it four times a year when the procedure, the protocol
in France or any other country for my treatment is
once a year. Another example that needs to be corrected.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
And sorry, and if you had those extra three tests
a year. Who pays for those extra three tests.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
That's not part of the protocol exactly. It is one
hundred percent born by the state. And another example, well,
I have cancer two oncologists instead of one, so I
have one consultation every month instead of every two months.
(09:10):
There's no control. So as it is free, I am
using it, and I don't put anything on that. You
talked about instabidity, So it.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Sounds it sounds like a wonderful system, probably too generous.
So let me give you some comparisons to Canada, and
I think that the bottom line is that in the
French system, in the Canadian system, healthcare is seen as
a right. In the United States it's not, and you
have to pay for it unless you've got some insurance.
(09:43):
And certainly Obama with Obamacare, tried to create a situation
that was comparable, at least for people of a lower
income level, comparable to what you've described. And the balance
of health care is provided by companies and they're sizeable copies.
When I lived in the United States and I had
(10:04):
a child that was being born, we had to give
a credit card before the hospital would accept us. And
when we debated whether it was going to be born
naturally or by way of caesarean section. They had to
inform us that we had to go back to the
cashier's office and put in another amount of money, and
we were told what that extra amount of money was.
(10:26):
And that was a little bit of an incentive for
my ex wife at the time to push a little
harder and have the child born naturally rather than by
caesarean exception. I can't remember the amount, but for someone
in their twenties my memory, it was an astronomical amount
of additional money I was going to have to pay
if we had to go with cesarean section. I'm not
sure that's a better system. I think that what you've
(10:48):
described and what Canada has is a better system. My
father passed away of prostate cancer. You talked about your anxiety.
Mine is one tenth one mone of your anxiety. But
I am concerned about prostate cancer because my grandfather and
my father both have prostate cancer. The protocol in Canada
(11:11):
is for a PSA test only once in a while,
and if you have it at a younger agent, or
if you have it more frequently, you have to pay.
So I have to pay forty bucks every time I
have a PSA test, because I take it more often
than the protocol. So that's one difference, I guess than
your system, where if you deviate from the protocol you
have to pay in cash. I wanted to go see
(11:33):
a urologist. The eurologist's information was that I didn't meet
the test of when my PSA was high enough to
go see the urologist, and so he turned down the reference.
And so one has to go if you go to
another specialist, one has to go to a GP, a
general practitioner and get a reference, a recommendation to go
(11:55):
to the referral to go to the specialist, and if
you don't meet certain criteria, you don't get to go.
So if I wanted to go, I would have to
go to a private clinic and toward the United States
and pay in cash. And so I think that we've
got a similar system to France, but less generous. And
I'm not sure whether our system is better or not,
(12:16):
but there are we don't have copays like they would
in the UK, and on a old age pension, so
our age is sixty five. There have been some people
that have suggested increasing it to sixty seven, and we've
had seniors protest on Parliament Hill saying keep your hands
off my old age pension check. And so people feel
(12:39):
like they've worked their whole life to pay into a
pension and they don't want to have that taken away
from them, and so I have some sympathy with that.
I think that if you're going to change it, it
should be changed for people progressively rather than all at once.
One of the things that we have put in place
is a incentive system such that if you wait till
seven to start getting your pension, you actually get more pension.
(13:04):
And actually it may or may not be a good
economic decision, but if you are healthy and you think
that you're going to live a reasonably long life, it
actually makes economic sense to not take your pension at
sixty five, to delay it until seventy and then start
taking it. And importantly, that was not something mandated, but
(13:25):
it was something that was incentivized that where you got
a higher amount. And then I guess the last thing
I would say is we have a similar system to
you in regards to the baby boom and aging and
the number of people that are going to be in retirement.
I think it's gone from five to one in the
nineteen seventies to two to one today, so two people
working for every one person that is on old age.
(13:48):
And in that regard, what we've done is we've pre
funded our old age pensions and so therefore people while
working had to put money in that would prefund their
pension during retirement. And so therefore the Canadan Pension Plan
is one of the largest pension funds in the world,
and it's certainly the largest pension fund in Canada and
(14:10):
invests around the world and gets an attractive return. We
have not pre funded for some other things like healthcare,
and so we've pre funded one of the major programs
of retirement, but not at all. And yes, you're right,
we're all getting older and as we age, our expected
life is getting greater. But yet the retirement age hasn't changed.
(14:33):
And so there are people that are suggesting that as
life expectancy increases, maybe we should be increasing the age
of retirement, which I guess is the last point to
your fifteen hundred dollars. We would not get that. But
if you get old age pensions when you're still working,
if you get other not necessarily health benefits, but other
(14:54):
benefits from the society. While you're still working, you're paying
income tax on that. And if you're no longer working,
if you're making big income from your capital and you're
getting a old age pension, a lot of that value
will get tax back, not all of it, but a
certain proportion of it. And so I think that we
have a taxation system that will somewhat compensate for public
(15:18):
purse spending on you, not for health care, but for
old age security and pensions and things like that. If
you're wealthy and you're still making a lot of money.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Well, coming back to your several points, at the number
one one of retirement plans, payments are made by the state.
There have been a lot of discussions on every election
we talked to about this because of course it's the
solution to address this problem of having less and less
people paying for retirement retired people. We never got it
(15:55):
managed to get that approved. So basically, the money contributed
by people working now is used for people under retirement now.
No specific fund has been prepared ahead of this problem,
and it will not be the case. Well, we have
a strong limitation is that we have. It's amazing we
(16:16):
got sixty four percent of our GDP is collected. The
sum of all the tags that are collected represent sixty
four percent of our GDP. We've reached. The limit in
Germany is forty eight, in Spain it's forty six. In
(16:37):
the US it's close to forty two. There is a
huge gap. We can't find it. Lot doesn't make any sense.
And for instance, another example of the system which is
over protecting, when I did my first consultation two years
ago and showing I had a cancer the task as
a cancer, I went to the assistant of the oncologist
(17:01):
and she gave me a right away form. She was
signed by the doctor saying that I was not supposed
to work for the next ten months and that was
supposed to be transfer addressed to my employer, so that
I will be out of job. Although I was I
was ready to work. So I can understand that a
(17:22):
lot of people when they see that and they understand
that for ten months they will not have to work
and they will get the same salary. Well, it's excessive,
because I do feel you you should have to make
the request and not getting that as a pure automatic.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
So PJ, I don't understand I thought Sarkarzy was trying
to address a lot of these things. And my sense
is it's the left and the right, the extreme left
and the extreme right that have been, you know, living
in dreamland and opposing many of these policies. So why
is why is sarcouse you solo in the popular opinion polls,
(18:03):
and why is his prime minister changing every couple of weeks?
What's going on. We're going to take a break for
some messages and when we come back in two minutes,
I want to ask PJ what's going on with the politics?
Stay with us. Everyone back in two minutes.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Everybody stream us live at SAGA nine six am dot CA.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Welcome back everyone to the Brian Crimey Radio. Got to
Pierre Jean esmil Fnial Advisory. He is an investment banker
in Paris, France, and he wanted to come on the
show and talk about French politics and why it's in
such disarray. We've talked about the welfare state, and we've
compared the French welfare state to Canada, to the United States,
to the EU and at sixty four percent of GDP,
(18:59):
it appears that you're your taxation is very high and
there's this concept. I can't remember the name of it,
but once you go over fifty percent, people start not
wanting to work and or they decide to leave. And
I've heard lots of stories about, you know, rich people
in France going to Luxembourg or Switzerland or wherever. And
so what are you going to do about it? And
(19:20):
more importantly, what are the different parties going to do
about it? Because I thought, based on what I read,
Sarkozy was actually trying to address this, and yet people
keep protesting and demonstrating, and the popular opinion for him,
who's the only grown up in the room, it would appear,
is plummeting. So what's going on?
Speaker 3 (19:40):
My argument, Brian is the following. We've reached the limit
of the welfare state. I forgot to mention the big numbers,
but the big numbers is three point five trillion euros
of debt six percent deficit. We can't do that any longer.
So of course we need some body that will help
(20:02):
the people understand and make changes to the welfare state.
That's going to be very difficult to pass because we're French.
So whenever you reuse or you'll reduce a revenue coverage something.
Everybody is on the street, so we need somebody so
strong that the French people will follow. So let's see
what we are in terms of people we have. We
(20:26):
have had over the last three years and a half
five prime ministers, so it's more than one prime minister
per anam. And what's funny is what you mentioned at
the beginning of the interview. We had mister Lucnu that
nobody heard about, was appointing prime minister a month and
a half ago and it was revoked twenty four hours after.
(20:50):
So it's really telling faster and faster, and it's very
difficult to follow who's get the well, who's running the
country now. On top of it, the ministers that have
been had some rules over the last five years, basically
when President Macrome was re elected. Over a period of
(21:13):
four years, twenty percent of our ministers are indicted, not
for funny things, sexual allegation, corruption, favoritism, conflict of interest,
tax decalization and defamation. Twenty percent of ministers are currently
(21:37):
going through difficulties with the judges of front. So how
do you want the people of France to identify themselves
to follow one of these clouds. It's not possible. So
let's talk about the big guy, the president of France.
We have regimed the fifth Republic in France, where the
(22:02):
role of the president is central. Has got more power
than the president of the US or your prime minister.
He's got more power. I'm going to demonstrate that. But
let's see what he's done. There's a big problem. Since
the beginning. It was a managing director with Rothschild in
(22:22):
MM and he closed the biggest deal in two thousand
and eight, the biggest deal in Europe. This was an
acquisition by Mesley and he worked three years with Rothschild
at the top level. That's one of my conquerrent. I've
been working with them with competition, so I know how
(22:43):
much you make as a bonus on this type of transaction,
which was in excess of ten billion dollars. The guy
reported is a state everything he owns just before he
got president. That's an obligation in France. And he published
one twenty three million euros as patrimony doesn't make any sense.
(23:06):
He probably has got ten or twenty million euros in possession.
Is a liar and the business community knows about it
because there is an investigation on that also, so we
don't have the right president. Is granted currently about twenty
(23:26):
percent satisfaction with the French people. This is close to zero.
We'll never We never had a president below twenty five
percent during his term. So we don't have ministers, we
don't have a president. And now the big pieces should
make you laugh. For two hundred years, that's Sarkozy's been
(23:51):
indicted ten times, but three times very very important, very scary.
The number one thing he did, like you know in
the US the Watergate, he did something very similar, so funny.
He rented a telephone instead of using his mobile phone,
(24:14):
and he negotiated with a judge in the south of
France that he doesn't pitched him in a change of
a new job in Monaco. This is so much true
that he has been condemned level one, level two, level three,
which is appeal and cassition. So it's been the state
that's clearly said is a liar, is dangerous and it's
(24:38):
not abiding by the law. That is something very small
when you talk about the rest. The second point where
we had a decision that made so much noise in France,
that was two months ago. It was condemned with transferring
(24:58):
money from Adafi, which is one of the worst dictators
one can think about in Libya, and it took at
least fifty five oh million euros in different cases with
money inside. It's been indicting on that is being judged
(25:20):
and condemned on this. This is just amazing. Now, let's
think about it. Kadafi. It's a proven fact killed up
a plane above Scotland. You remember Dystorian there was about
one hundred and fifty people died in this terrorist attempt. Well,
that's the same money that been used. And this one
(25:42):
we use the money of a dictator to fund the campaign,
the president campaign of Sarkozy. Wow. And the last one
I love it so much because it seeks to me
the guy is completely stupid. In France, you cannot spend
more than a certain amount for your presidential campaign. In
(26:04):
the case of Zakozi because he was former president, so
he had an enveloped maximum enveloped of twenty million euros.
Well that wasn't enough because he was showing thirty five
forty percent success in the different poles. So he said,
I'm going to accelerate and do a lot of meetings
and he could not do the meeting. He did so
(26:26):
many meetings that doesn't fall within the envelope of twenty million.
Just for you to know, it costs altogether fifty million euros.
And in order to get the money and not getting
the state just a tonely if you wish equivalent against him,
you know what he did. He organized something where he
did some breakfast with one hundred members of his political party.
(26:52):
We should cost about three thousand euro and he put
one hundred thousand euros spent on this type of breakfast.
And there was a double accounting between his party and
is enveloped to be presdented. I don't know if you
get the story, but he was using the money of
his party, not apparently it was hidden to finance his
(27:17):
presidential campaign. He's been indicted and proven that he has
done so. So you told me at the beginning, why
don't you use so because he seems like a nice
buy on the right, We cannot, you cannot. If this
guy proposed a very good solution to France, no French
people will listen to him because it's a bad guy.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
So tell me about Marilla Penne, tell me about the
left wing.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Marie la pen you're not lucky she's been indicted at
the European Parliament because she was a funny story. She
was paying a fake assistant and it was demonstrated that
his assistant was working for a party, not for the
(28:06):
European Council. It's amazing. You touched every people.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Everyone, Just tell everyone Marie la pen Is the head
of the most popular party in France today. Is that
not correct? And it's on the right and some people
think that it's extreme right and her father used to
be head of the party and some people have described
as a as a extreme right. Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Her father founded the party in nineteen fifty changed the name,
but we don't care. The problem with this guy is
that it was coming from s O A S which
was a terrorist organization when we were you know, when
Algaya was part of France, and so that was to
(28:57):
finance some terrorist attent. So the guy was coming from
this environment. And a daughter is doing very well. But
again she's been indicted and she's got well A party.
A Party got thirty five percent in a poll that
was published yesterday. The question was who's your first candidate
(29:20):
for the next presidency of France which is in twenty
seven and the first, by far is a deputy Jordan
because she cannot put for the time being, she cannot
be presented as a potential president because she's indicted. So
Jordan is only thirty years old. It's got the best score.
(29:42):
He's got thirty five percent. The second potential president for
twenty seven got sixteen percent. So the difference is huge.
And yes, a party is doing very very well. Now
the problem will always be the same children is so young.
Is not addressing the welfare state at all. He proposes
(30:03):
some further protections, in particular for the disabled like me,
So I should be very ecstatic.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Okay, So what about the left. You've got a left
wing party that also is quite popular.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
Is that not correct? Yeah? The Socialist Party was the
main party for a very very long time. When President
from Somite Whole nineteen eighty one was elected, he got
a fifty six percent and so much so. But then
this party, as much as the Right Party, are down
(30:37):
to four or five percent of the population. They've been
in so many problems with justice, so many competitions that
these guys are out, and now you have a new
thing which is extreme to the left. It's even worse
than the Communist party and it's called lf LFI and
(30:59):
the founder is a guy with an arravist He wants
he wants to be elected at any cost, is ready
to say what just just about whatever he can say
in order to be elected. It's very very dangerous. Uh.
He tends to federate a lot of parties on the
left left left, but he's been put aside for all
(31:23):
the time being because he's done a lot of mistakes.
So to answer your questions, aside from pj myself, there
is nobody in front that can help reform our system,
reduce all that, like all the other countries. So we're
going against the hall. That that's the story as is.
(31:43):
We're going against the hall and we have nobody that
we can trust as a nation that could go with
a project and be listened to.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
So what's the solution?
Speaker 3 (31:56):
I haven't I wouldn't be here otherwise.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Okay, Well, we're gonna have to take a break for
some messages and come back with with Pierjean and his
solution for French politics. But it sounds it sounds not
that dissimilar. Then you know a lot of other countries
that you know, when you think about the UK, the
the Reform Party and Nigel from are doing very well.
(32:24):
I think are in first place. The the Liberal Democrats
are nowhere. The Conservatives have fallen dramatically. Labor is currently
the prime minister, but uh, and the party in power
but not doing not doing well. You know, there seems
(32:44):
to be a distrust of politics and politicians worldwide and
UH and A and a polarization of populations that are
going right or going left, and not a lot of
people that are voting for for centrist parties. And yet
it sounds like what you're suggesting is that the center policies,
(33:09):
maybe center right policies are are what are required. Let's
take a break for some messages and come back in
just two minutes with Pier Jean talking about what potential
solutions may exist in France. David and everyone back into.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
No Radio, No Problem stream is live on SAGA ninety
sixty am dot c A.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Welcome back everyone to the Brian Crombie Radio Hour. Were
chatting tonight with Pierre Jean s Advisory. He's an investment
banker from Paris, France. He's worked in New York, He's
worked in London, He's worked in Paris, he's worked for
big investment banks and he now runs his own some
banking and he's described his own personal challenge with cancer.
(34:04):
Actually haven't talked about that, but you've talked about how
it was funded and the welfare state in France. We've
talked a little bit about French politics. I thought highly
of the policies without knowing the politics of Sarcozzi and
of Macron, and you've described both gentlemen as as effectively corrupt,
which is interesting and sarcose, particularly indicted. I didn't realize
(34:28):
all of the indictments against him. I still thought highly
of Macran and so you know, it'll be interesting that
you say, is at what twenty percent popularity, which is,
as you said, close to zero. So, given the polarization
in France, given the sixty four percent of your GDP
that is taxed away, given the welfare state, given the
(34:51):
over six percent deficit that you've described six percent of
GDP deficit, what's your solution are you going to run?
Is that the solution? PJ for president?
Speaker 3 (35:02):
Why not just forg At one point, before we get
into it, do you know that for the first time
in the Republic of France, our previous President, your friend
mister Sakose is in jail, is in jail for the
last three weeks and it's been condemned to five years
(35:26):
in jail. Amazing. Just want to take you the latest
example of how our welfare state is really jeopardized, because
you would agree with that it's not a solution to
put taxis on taxis on taxis to address the ever
growing need of the community to maintain this type of insurance.
(35:50):
So the last example I give you has been at
the forefront of our country, at every level of our people,
the poor as well as the rich. It's called the
tax Zachman, the Zachman, the Zuckman, sorry, Zuckman, Zuckman tax.
Mister Zuckman is a prominent economist and is teaching at
(36:15):
the University of Berkeley, so you will expect something very
clever from him. So here is his proposal, very simple.
The context is that rich French people have increased their
assets that have valued their patrimony over the last twenty
years at an average rate of seven percent per animal.
(36:37):
As a result, they grow richer and richer when the
poor are growing poorer and poorer. In order to address
this injustice is lack of Justice. His proposal is the following.
Every French citizen that has an asset patrimony in excess
of one hundred million euros will pay every year two
(37:02):
percent of his patrimony in tax. Now, if you got
really rich people, you really better off if they stay
in the country of France. And what we're trying to
do with this is to expel them out of France
because they don't want to pay two percent. The problem
is that the poll that was made on this proposal
(37:24):
for tax get a favorable opinion from how much of
my how many of my cities and brain, how many
what's the percentage according to you are French people in agreement,
which is proposal to tax at two percent everything which
is higher than one hundred meterium? How many people? How much?
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Seventy percent?
Speaker 3 (37:49):
That's a close one eighty two percent. So the poor
are very happy because you're hurting the rich. And that's
what we want to do because our country is divided.
And that will explain my solution. And when you think
about it, if you have a startup where you raised
one billion on the value of one billion, but you
(38:12):
leave everything you're entrepreneur, you leave all the money in
the company. You don't get a salary, well you will
have to pay, in my example, twenty million per annum
and you have no money. It doesn't work anyways. So
what's the solution of BJ Well, we have to come
back to the basics. We have nobody that can support
(38:34):
a real transformation our welfare state. I think it's a
good demonstration. I gave you the second. We need to
reduce the level of coverage provided by our system, the
welfare state, by our much four to five points in
order to have a deficit in agreement with our commitment
(38:59):
with Europe. So we need to remove, in other words,
one hundred and fifty billion euros of spending per annum
and moving ourselves from sixty four to sixty. Now, as
I said, nobody can be behind this because there's nobody.
The ference is divided between the rich and the poor
(39:21):
and whatever. So we have no one to do the job.
We have no government that is supported by the people,
we have no clear majority in the parliament. Well, then
the solution is simple. Let's cast a referendum. The referendum
will be a list of expenses that the welfare state
(39:45):
is doing as we speak, and everybody will feel what
you think is the priority, and by our much it's
very easy to do and everybody will like a referendum.
The beauty of a referendum when compared to laws then
can be passed at the House of Parliament. As I said,
(40:08):
the House of Parliament is no longer recognized by the
French people. So if the French people do the job
and select themselves what should be reduced, what should be maintained,
and we use that to enact laws in conformity with
the poor. Well, my read, the people of France, the
(40:29):
citizen of France will not go in the street, they
will not go and strike because there will be the
one to decide what's going on. And all of this
in the context that we need to achieve altogether for
five percent reduction in our spending. So it will be
the condition and why it will be accepted. It will
(40:52):
be accepted because we all know that the debt that
we have, which is a besalt create it's too much.
This debt will be paid at the end of the
day by our kids. And I do trust that the
rich and the poor would agree on that we need
to address it, otherwise our kids will be in trouble.
(41:16):
You know that the rating of France has been decreased
over the last ten years from triple A double A plus,
double A double a minus and now we're considering A plus.
So it becomes very urgent to find a solution. And
my poor proposal is to call on a referendum addressing
(41:37):
what needs to be reduced.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Well, I think that referenda are an excellent way of
getting people involved. I worry that you need to have
a very simple question. And in Canada we have had
referendum on Quebec sovereignty, as you probably aware, and the
question wasn't wasn't well defined and and simple, and people
(42:00):
were confused by it and it came down to fifty
points something percent versus forty nine points something percent. It
was unbelievably close. And that's not the way to run
a country where your population is split almost fifty to
fifty on a question that was prely worded and ill defined.
And so that I think is the issue is that
(42:23):
you've got to have, if you go to the people,
a simple question. It's got to be well defined, it's
got to be understandable by everyone. There has to be
a good campaign where there are spending limits and so
that therefore money can't buy the result and I don't work,
I don't think, and it's going to be very difficult
(42:44):
for you to have a menu of a whole bunch
of options, and so, you know, one suggestion would be
if what you're saying is that the amount of money
that the federal government can take, that the French government
can take has to go from sixty four to sixty percent,
or that the deficit has to be reduced from six
percent of GDP to let's say five percent of GDP.
(43:08):
I think that that's the kind of question that the
people can answer in a referendum, and then the details
of exactly how might have to be worked out by
other people. Something like should the age of retirement go
from sixty three to sixty four, to sixty five, to
sixty six to sixty seven, you know, every year or
(43:30):
every two years over the course of the next couple
of years. That's a question that people could debate in
the public sphere and could vote on. I worry that
if you've got a whole bunch of options of how
you can reduce the welfare state, it's can be very
difficult to have a referendum where people can actually analyze
and figure things out. And I'm not suggesting that people
(43:54):
aren't smart. I think people are very smart. But in
a campaign where you've got a synthesize it all down
to a vote yes or no on something and then
go into a ballot box on one day, that's challenging.
And I think we've learned that because one of the
things that I think that we've learned over history is
that the market, the private market works And the reason
(44:18):
why the private market works is because people make decisions
based on price and quantity and quality every day, every
minute of every day over time. But in elections, you
make that decision once at one point in time, everyone
all together and it and win. It takes all. And
the example that someone in politics gave me said, think
(44:39):
about pepsi versus coke. If pepsi and coke got to
advertise for a year and spend a whole bunch of
money on advertisements for a year, and did a whole
bunch of taste tests for a whole year, and then
at the end of the year, on one day, you
all decided whether you're going to drink pepsi and coke
and pepsi one and made billions of dollars and Coke
(45:05):
went bankrupt or Coke had zero revenue for four years.
Our market wouldn't work. That's what politics is is a
whole bunch of people spend a whole bunch of money
and market like crazy, and then on one day we
all buy vote and the winner takes all. And I
(45:27):
think that's a system. They can't work and it ends
up being problematic. Now, referendum. You could have a referendum
every day and make it more like the private marketplace.
But people aren't going to participate every day. When we
do polls, what do we get one thousand people? Two
thousand people participate in a poll, So to do a
referendum every day is impossible. But I like your idea
(45:51):
and I think that having it based on some simple
question with an overriding objective and then let the people decide,
I think that that is a doable And in Canada,
in our last fair election, I think we actually had
a referendum. It wasn't positioned as it as a referendum,
but it was effectively that do Canadians want to stand
(46:13):
up to the threat of Donald Trump's tariffs? And people
overwhelmingly voted in favor of standing up to the Donald
Trump thread of terriffs. Anyway, PJ, excellent to chat with you.
Referend the market happened in the short term in France,
So what do you predicts can happen in the next
couple of months in France.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
Not to be pedentive, but my really is the following.
Who's h popularist, Who's a popular How many est the
cause of the popularists, which are the representing of the
people in the ancient room, The cause of the popular
(46:59):
is the cool of the people is the cause of
the Roman people. What you may not know is that
we did a reference. Last time, we did a referendum
fifteen years ago. The question was simple, Hey guys, do
you want to stay within Europe or do you want
to exit Europe. The decision of the people was we
(47:21):
want to exit Europe. As a result, it falls under
the law of France and the constitution and we should
have exited from Europe. What did Sarcus a year and
a half ago? He used the two houses of Parliament,
the Senate and the Keitty and when you reunite the
(47:41):
two of them in our constitution and you obtained sixty
percent decision on the point it becomes a law. So
the people of France last time they had been questioned
about what they want to do of the future, the
government did not pay attention. That government did not retained
the decision. My argument on everything. The country is divided
(48:06):
like he's never been. A referendum will regroup everyone. Of course,
it will be simple questions, by the way, I have
the experience inside.
Speaker 2 (48:15):
But a referendum in Britain created Brexit, and now everyone
regrets the decision. And then people would prefer to undo
what they decided a couple of years ago, but no government,
no party's got the guts to actually do it. But
I think everyone says it was a mistake.
Speaker 3 (48:34):
Winston Churchill has been famous for this. Following he said
when a journalist questioned him, he said, what do you
think of democracy? And you probably know this one Churchill did.
Democracy is the worst of the possible government of a country,
but there's nothing else. So granted, I do think that
(48:56):
the decision of the people of the UK was disastrous
for them, but it's the decision of the people, and
you can't have half a democracy. You gotta have and
sometimes you're going to get bad decisions when I was
in South Africa. We had the problem. I was a
citizen of South Africa. There was a pull about the
(49:18):
new president. Of course Mandela. It wasn't ninety four. Mandela
was ahead of them, but there was about twenty candidacy
and the problem for the ballot is that ninety percent
of the black people could not read, so they use pictures.
What I see in this referendum is pictures where you
(49:39):
say yes no about twenty questions, no more. And with
that you need a commitment. And by the way, you
should have told me that what's missing in my argument.
We need somebody to orchestrate that. Of course we don't
have We know it's not going to be a politician
because all of them are dead on the market. That's
(50:00):
the change. It's frankly, this is the way to solve
all our problems and become united into the umbrella of democracy,
republic and recovery of the attitude the thinking of the
people that are running in the country.
Speaker 2 (50:20):
Thank you so much for joining us. This has been
a fascinating conversation. I really appreciate it. This is really
interesting to hear from you what the challenges are in
France and take compare it to some of the challenges
that we've got us where really appreciate it. That's our
show for tonight, everybody, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1 (50:40):
Stream us live at SAGA nine sixty am dot CA.
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
Saga nine sixty am or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
No good evening, everyone, Welcome to the Brian Cromby Radio Hour.
What's going on in France politics. It seems like there's
a different prime minister nominated every week or so. You know,
a guy that I thought the President of France very
highly of, seems to be on the ropes. You know,
what's going on. And I think in addition to understanding
what's going on in France, it's a challenge that appears
(00:38):
to be duplicated in numerous other countries, whether it be
you know, Britain or the United States or Canada or elsewhere.
So understanding how France is dealing with their political upheaval,
where the market, the population seems to be splitting to
the left and to the right and not to the center,
I think is something that we need to understand. And
so I'm joined today by Pierre Jean Esimiel of Foniel Advisory.
(01:03):
He is a gentleman I've known for thirty years, well
maybe twenty twenty five years, and he's an investment banker.
He runs his own investment bank. He has worked for
major investment banks in Paris and London and New York previously.
He's working now on numerous different deals in Canada, United
States and in Europe. So I think he's got a
(01:23):
good read of what's going on in the world. So PJ,
Pierre Jean, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Welcome Brian. It's real pleasure to be hosted on your show.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
So what's going on in France, what's going on in Paris?
What's going on with your Sarcosey, who I thought was excellent.
I liked his policies.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
I'm going to get into that. But before I do so,
if I may my point what I'm going to try
to demonstrate over this presentation, I think it all comes
around the notion of welfare state. Welfare state as understand
to has implemented since nineteen forty eight in France, and
(02:06):
I think that's where the problem is. So before we
get into that, I like to give you just a
quick point which I'm going to explain to everyone the
particular situation in France versus Canada. As his dust As
you know, I got metastasy cancer, all right, So there's
(02:27):
a lot of costs bond by the community as a
result of this cancer. One of them, as an example,
is my main medicine, which is called dalo ratamida. It's
an amandotherapy. If I were to pay this treatment, it
would cost me fifty thousand dollars per annum. Another example,
(02:51):
my chemotherapy cost to the French state forty thousand dollars.
A last example, which it's got to be surprising, when
I went to the hospital to get my chemotherapy, my radiotherapy,
the assistant at the hospital went to me with a
(03:11):
blank form and say, hey, PJ, how did you travel
to the hospital? Well, travel by with my motorbike. I said,
that is fine. Just fill out this firm and the
state will give you one hundred dollars every time you
went to the hospital. We are used to a welfare.
(03:32):
Welfare state in France has got nothing to do with
what you know guys in the US, the overall cost
of my treatment to the community is three hundred and
twenty thousand US dollars annumal how much do I pay
on discust? What do you think, Brian, I must pay something?
(03:56):
Don't you think.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
I think you pay zero? It's covered by public health.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Care, I pay zero. Where it becomes funny, quote unquote,
I was diagnosed, I was given the status of a
disabled person because I got cancer. So I received every
single month on my bank account fifteen hundred US dollars.
(04:25):
What strikes me is that, in all this presentation that
I gave you very quickly and I can get into
more details, nobody is asking me to justify my income
because don't you think that if I were very rich,
the state should not pay for everything. And in particular,
(04:46):
do you think that if I were very rich, I
should not be entitled to this fifteen hundred US dollars
tax free every month. So France has been used to
a full coverage of anything that can happen to a
Frenchman during his professional life or his private life. So
(05:08):
it's about health, but it's also about protection when you
get fired. When you get fired, we get two years
of compensation from the state and it's lastly eighty percent
of what you use to win to earn what before retirement.
(05:31):
So the notion of protection in France is so much extended,
so much different, so much more when compared to our
friends in the US in Canada. Any by the way,
any other countries in Europe. One last point we're going
(05:51):
to get into that retirement retirement. The age for retirement
in France is sixty two years old, when in all
OISCD countries it is sixty seven. And we all know
that we cannot bone discuss because people get additional life,
(06:11):
get died later. Every quarter we earn another quarter of
extended life. So the system in France is not a
direct capitalization. In order to get your retirement, it is
paid by the state and it's because of the people
who are working now that are giving money to the
(06:33):
state in order to pay for the guy which are
in retirement now. So as the number of people working
in France will decrease over time when compared to the
one being covered for retirement, it doesn't work. Last example,
before I get to something else, in nineteen sixty we
(06:56):
had four people working for one guy in retire himend. Well,
guess what it's one point five now. So all that
is not understood by the population in summary, so much
so that what happened two years ago was outstanding. They
(07:16):
tried to reduce to increase the date for retirement, the
age for retirement, and we had what we call I
don't know if you heard about it, the yellow the
yellow jacket, so that were those people poor people, people
making less. A definition of poor in France is making
(07:36):
less than fifteen hundred dollars per month, so they were
on the street. The company was frozen for about two months,
which means that whenever you want to touch the welfare
state in France, you're in trouble because everybody goes to
the street even more than we do usually because you
know that in France we're going to strike very easily.
(07:57):
So that was my main point. And also in terms
of coverage, it is not well organized. I'm a bit
anxious about my cancer, so I want to do I
don't know if you know that the PSMA pet scan.
It's a full scan of your body and it's the
latest technology. Well a test like that costs to the
(08:21):
community five thousand US. Well, I do want every three
months because I got kids, I'm anxious, I want to
be really sure. So it's my own decision to do
it four times a year when the procedure, the protocol
in France or any other country for my treatment is
once a year. Another example that needs to be corrected.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
And sorry, and if you had those extra three tests
a year. Who pays for those extra three tests.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
That's not part of the protocol exactly. It is one
hundred percent born by the state. And another example, well,
I have cancer two oncologists instead of one, so I
have one consultation every month instead of every two months.
(09:10):
There's no control. So as it is free, I am
using it, and I don't put anything on that. You
talked about instabidity, So it.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Sounds it sounds like a wonderful system, probably too generous.
So let me give you some comparisons to Canada, and
I think that the bottom line is that in the
French system, in the Canadian system, healthcare is seen as
a right. In the United States it's not, and you
have to pay for it unless you've got some insurance.
(09:43):
And certainly Obama with Obamacare, tried to create a situation
that was comparable, at least for people of a lower
income level, comparable to what you've described. And the balance
of health care is provided by companies and they're sizeable copies.
When I lived in the United States and I had
(10:04):
a child that was being born, we had to give
a credit card before the hospital would accept us. And
when we debated whether it was going to be born
naturally or by way of caesarean section. They had to
inform us that we had to go back to the
cashier's office and put in another amount of money, and
we were told what that extra amount of money was.
(10:26):
And that was a little bit of an incentive for
my ex wife at the time to push a little
harder and have the child born naturally rather than by
caesarean exception. I can't remember the amount, but for someone
in their twenties my memory, it was an astronomical amount
of additional money I was going to have to pay
if we had to go with cesarean section. I'm not
sure that's a better system. I think that what you've
(10:48):
described and what Canada has is a better system. My
father passed away of prostate cancer. You talked about your anxiety.
Mine is one tenth one mone of your anxiety. But
I am concerned about prostate cancer because my grandfather and
my father both have prostate cancer. The protocol in Canada
(11:11):
is for a PSA test only once in a while,
and if you have it at a younger agent, or
if you have it more frequently, you have to pay.
So I have to pay forty bucks every time I
have a PSA test, because I take it more often
than the protocol. So that's one difference, I guess than
your system, where if you deviate from the protocol you
have to pay in cash. I wanted to go see
(11:33):
a urologist. The eurologist's information was that I didn't meet
the test of when my PSA was high enough to
go see the urologist, and so he turned down the reference.
And so one has to go if you go to
another specialist, one has to go to a GP, a
general practitioner and get a reference, a recommendation to go
(11:55):
to the referral to go to the specialist, and if
you don't meet certain criteria, you don't get to go.
So if I wanted to go, I would have to
go to a private clinic and toward the United States
and pay in cash. And so I think that we've
got a similar system to France, but less generous. And
I'm not sure whether our system is better or not,
(12:16):
but there are we don't have copays like they would
in the UK, and on a old age pension, so
our age is sixty five. There have been some people
that have suggested increasing it to sixty seven, and we've
had seniors protest on Parliament Hill saying keep your hands
off my old age pension check. And so people feel
(12:39):
like they've worked their whole life to pay into a
pension and they don't want to have that taken away
from them, and so I have some sympathy with that.
I think that if you're going to change it, it
should be changed for people progressively rather than all at once.
One of the things that we have put in place
is a incentive system such that if you wait till
seven to start getting your pension, you actually get more pension.
(13:04):
And actually it may or may not be a good
economic decision, but if you are healthy and you think
that you're going to live a reasonably long life, it
actually makes economic sense to not take your pension at
sixty five, to delay it until seventy and then start
taking it. And importantly, that was not something mandated, but
(13:25):
it was something that was incentivized that where you got
a higher amount. And then I guess the last thing
I would say is we have a similar system to
you in regards to the baby boom and aging and
the number of people that are going to be in retirement.
I think it's gone from five to one in the
nineteen seventies to two to one today, so two people
working for every one person that is on old age.
(13:48):
And in that regard, what we've done is we've pre
funded our old age pensions and so therefore people while
working had to put money in that would prefund their
pension during retirement. And so therefore the Canadan Pension Plan
is one of the largest pension funds in the world,
and it's certainly the largest pension fund in Canada and
(14:10):
invests around the world and gets an attractive return. We
have not pre funded for some other things like healthcare,
and so we've pre funded one of the major programs
of retirement, but not at all. And yes, you're right,
we're all getting older and as we age, our expected
life is getting greater. But yet the retirement age hasn't changed.
(14:33):
And so there are people that are suggesting that as
life expectancy increases, maybe we should be increasing the age
of retirement, which I guess is the last point to
your fifteen hundred dollars. We would not get that. But
if you get old age pensions when you're still working,
if you get other not necessarily health benefits, but other
(14:54):
benefits from the society. While you're still working, you're paying
income tax on that. And if you're no longer working,
if you're making big income from your capital and you're
getting a old age pension, a lot of that value
will get tax back, not all of it, but a
certain proportion of it. And so I think that we
have a taxation system that will somewhat compensate for public
(15:18):
purse spending on you, not for health care, but for
old age security and pensions and things like that. If
you're wealthy and you're still making a lot of money.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Well, coming back to your several points, at the number
one one of retirement plans, payments are made by the state.
There have been a lot of discussions on every election
we talked to about this because of course it's the
solution to address this problem of having less and less
people paying for retirement retired people. We never got it
(15:55):
managed to get that approved. So basically, the money contributed
by people working now is used for people under retirement now.
No specific fund has been prepared ahead of this problem,
and it will not be the case. Well, we have
a strong limitation is that we have. It's amazing we
(16:16):
got sixty four percent of our GDP is collected. The
sum of all the tags that are collected represent sixty
four percent of our GDP. We've reached. The limit in
Germany is forty eight, in Spain it's forty six. In
(16:37):
the US it's close to forty two. There is a
huge gap. We can't find it. Lot doesn't make any sense.
And for instance, another example of the system which is
over protecting, when I did my first consultation two years
ago and showing I had a cancer the task as
a cancer, I went to the assistant of the oncologist
(17:01):
and she gave me a right away form. She was
signed by the doctor saying that I was not supposed
to work for the next ten months and that was
supposed to be transfer addressed to my employer, so that
I will be out of job. Although I was I
was ready to work. So I can understand that a
(17:22):
lot of people when they see that and they understand
that for ten months they will not have to work
and they will get the same salary. Well, it's excessive,
because I do feel you you should have to make
the request and not getting that as a pure automatic.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
So PJ, I don't understand I thought Sarkarzy was trying
to address a lot of these things. And my sense
is it's the left and the right, the extreme left
and the extreme right that have been, you know, living
in dreamland and opposing many of these policies. So why
is why is sarcouse you solo in the popular opinion polls,
(18:03):
and why is his prime minister changing every couple of weeks?
What's going on. We're going to take a break for
some messages and when we come back in two minutes,
I want to ask PJ what's going on with the politics?
Stay with us. Everyone back in two minutes.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Everybody stream us live at SAGA nine six am dot CA.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Welcome back everyone to the Brian Crimey Radio. Got to
Pierre Jean esmil Fnial Advisory. He is an investment banker
in Paris, France, and he wanted to come on the
show and talk about French politics and why it's in
such disarray. We've talked about the welfare state, and we've
compared the French welfare state to Canada, to the United States,
to the EU and at sixty four percent of GDP,
(18:59):
it appears that you're your taxation is very high and
there's this concept. I can't remember the name of it,
but once you go over fifty percent, people start not
wanting to work and or they decide to leave. And
I've heard lots of stories about, you know, rich people
in France going to Luxembourg or Switzerland or wherever. And
so what are you going to do about it? And
(19:20):
more importantly, what are the different parties going to do
about it? Because I thought, based on what I read,
Sarkozy was actually trying to address this, and yet people
keep protesting and demonstrating, and the popular opinion for him,
who's the only grown up in the room, it would appear,
is plummeting. So what's going on?
Speaker 3 (19:40):
My argument, Brian is the following. We've reached the limit
of the welfare state. I forgot to mention the big numbers,
but the big numbers is three point five trillion euros
of debt six percent deficit. We can't do that any longer.
So of course we need some body that will help
(20:02):
the people understand and make changes to the welfare state.
That's going to be very difficult to pass because we're French.
So whenever you reuse or you'll reduce a revenue coverage something.
Everybody is on the street, so we need somebody so
strong that the French people will follow. So let's see
what we are in terms of people we have. We
(20:26):
have had over the last three years and a half
five prime ministers, so it's more than one prime minister
per anam. And what's funny is what you mentioned at
the beginning of the interview. We had mister Lucnu that
nobody heard about, was appointing prime minister a month and
a half ago and it was revoked twenty four hours after.
(20:50):
So it's really telling faster and faster, and it's very
difficult to follow who's get the well, who's running the
country now. On top of it, the ministers that have
been had some rules over the last five years, basically
when President Macrome was re elected. Over a period of
(21:13):
four years, twenty percent of our ministers are indicted, not
for funny things, sexual allegation, corruption, favoritism, conflict of interest,
tax decalization and defamation. Twenty percent of ministers are currently
(21:37):
going through difficulties with the judges of front. So how
do you want the people of France to identify themselves
to follow one of these clouds. It's not possible. So
let's talk about the big guy, the president of France.
We have regimed the fifth Republic in France, where the
(22:02):
role of the president is central. Has got more power
than the president of the US or your prime minister.
He's got more power. I'm going to demonstrate that. But
let's see what he's done. There's a big problem. Since
the beginning. It was a managing director with Rothschild in
(22:22):
MM and he closed the biggest deal in two thousand
and eight, the biggest deal in Europe. This was an
acquisition by Mesley and he worked three years with Rothschild
at the top level. That's one of my conquerrent. I've
been working with them with competition, so I know how
(22:43):
much you make as a bonus on this type of transaction,
which was in excess of ten billion dollars. The guy
reported is a state everything he owns just before he
got president. That's an obligation in France. And he published
one twenty three million euros as patrimony doesn't make any sense.
(23:06):
He probably has got ten or twenty million euros in possession.
Is a liar and the business community knows about it
because there is an investigation on that also, so we
don't have the right president. Is granted currently about twenty
(23:26):
percent satisfaction with the French people. This is close to zero.
We'll never We never had a president below twenty five
percent during his term. So we don't have ministers, we
don't have a president. And now the big pieces should
make you laugh. For two hundred years, that's Sarkozy's been
(23:51):
indicted ten times, but three times very very important, very scary.
The number one thing he did, like you know in
the US the Watergate, he did something very similar, so funny.
He rented a telephone instead of using his mobile phone,
(24:14):
and he negotiated with a judge in the south of
France that he doesn't pitched him in a change of
a new job in Monaco. This is so much true
that he has been condemned level one, level two, level three,
which is appeal and cassition. So it's been the state
that's clearly said is a liar, is dangerous and it's
(24:38):
not abiding by the law. That is something very small
when you talk about the rest. The second point where
we had a decision that made so much noise in France,
that was two months ago. It was condemned with transferring
(24:58):
money from Adafi, which is one of the worst dictators
one can think about in Libya, and it took at
least fifty five oh million euros in different cases with
money inside. It's been indicting on that is being judged
(25:20):
and condemned on this. This is just amazing. Now, let's
think about it. Kadafi. It's a proven fact killed up
a plane above Scotland. You remember Dystorian there was about
one hundred and fifty people died in this terrorist attempt. Well,
that's the same money that been used. And this one
(25:42):
we use the money of a dictator to fund the campaign,
the president campaign of Sarkozy. Wow. And the last one
I love it so much because it seeks to me
the guy is completely stupid. In France, you cannot spend
more than a certain amount for your presidential campaign. In
(26:04):
the case of Zakozi because he was former president, so
he had an enveloped maximum enveloped of twenty million euros.
Well that wasn't enough because he was showing thirty five
forty percent success in the different poles. So he said,
I'm going to accelerate and do a lot of meetings
and he could not do the meeting. He did so
(26:26):
many meetings that doesn't fall within the envelope of twenty million.
Just for you to know, it costs altogether fifty million euros.
And in order to get the money and not getting
the state just a tonely if you wish equivalent against him,
you know what he did. He organized something where he
did some breakfast with one hundred members of his political party.
(26:52):
We should cost about three thousand euro and he put
one hundred thousand euros spent on this type of breakfast.
And there was a double accounting between his party and
is enveloped to be presdented. I don't know if you
get the story, but he was using the money of
his party, not apparently it was hidden to finance his
(27:17):
presidential campaign. He's been indicted and proven that he has
done so. So you told me at the beginning, why
don't you use so because he seems like a nice
buy on the right, We cannot, you cannot. If this
guy proposed a very good solution to France, no French
people will listen to him because it's a bad guy.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
So tell me about Marilla Penne, tell me about the
left wing.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Marie la pen you're not lucky she's been indicted at
the European Parliament because she was a funny story. She
was paying a fake assistant and it was demonstrated that
his assistant was working for a party, not for the
(28:06):
European Council. It's amazing. You touched every people.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Everyone, Just tell everyone Marie la pen Is the head
of the most popular party in France today. Is that
not correct? And it's on the right and some people
think that it's extreme right and her father used to
be head of the party and some people have described
as a as a extreme right. Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Her father founded the party in nineteen fifty changed the name,
but we don't care. The problem with this guy is
that it was coming from s O A S which
was a terrorist organization when we were you know, when
Algaya was part of France, and so that was to
(28:57):
finance some terrorist attent. So the guy was coming from
this environment. And a daughter is doing very well. But
again she's been indicted and she's got well A party.
A Party got thirty five percent in a poll that
was published yesterday. The question was who's your first candidate
(29:20):
for the next presidency of France which is in twenty
seven and the first, by far is a deputy Jordan
because she cannot put for the time being, she cannot
be presented as a potential president because she's indicted. So
Jordan is only thirty years old. It's got the best score.
(29:42):
He's got thirty five percent. The second potential president for
twenty seven got sixteen percent. So the difference is huge.
And yes, a party is doing very very well. Now
the problem will always be the same children is so young.
Is not addressing the welfare state at all. He proposes
(30:03):
some further protections, in particular for the disabled like me,
So I should be very ecstatic.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Okay, So what about the left. You've got a left
wing party that also is quite popular.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
Is that not correct? Yeah? The Socialist Party was the
main party for a very very long time. When President
from Somite Whole nineteen eighty one was elected, he got
a fifty six percent and so much so. But then
this party, as much as the Right Party, are down
(30:37):
to four or five percent of the population. They've been
in so many problems with justice, so many competitions that
these guys are out, and now you have a new
thing which is extreme to the left. It's even worse
than the Communist party and it's called lf LFI and
(30:59):
the founder is a guy with an arravist He wants
he wants to be elected at any cost, is ready
to say what just just about whatever he can say
in order to be elected. It's very very dangerous. Uh.
He tends to federate a lot of parties on the
left left left, but he's been put aside for all
(31:23):
the time being because he's done a lot of mistakes.
So to answer your questions, aside from pj myself, there
is nobody in front that can help reform our system,
reduce all that, like all the other countries. So we're
going against the hall. That that's the story as is.
(31:43):
We're going against the hall and we have nobody that
we can trust as a nation that could go with
a project and be listened to.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
So what's the solution?
Speaker 3 (31:56):
I haven't I wouldn't be here otherwise.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Okay, Well, we're gonna have to take a break for
some messages and come back with with Pierjean and his
solution for French politics. But it sounds it sounds not
that dissimilar. Then you know a lot of other countries
that you know, when you think about the UK, the
the Reform Party and Nigel from are doing very well.
(32:24):
I think are in first place. The the Liberal Democrats
are nowhere. The Conservatives have fallen dramatically. Labor is currently
the prime minister, but uh, and the party in power
but not doing not doing well. You know, there seems
(32:44):
to be a distrust of politics and politicians worldwide and
UH and A and a polarization of populations that are
going right or going left, and not a lot of
people that are voting for for centrist parties. And yet
it sounds like what you're suggesting is that the center policies,
(33:09):
maybe center right policies are are what are required. Let's
take a break for some messages and come back in
just two minutes with Pier Jean talking about what potential
solutions may exist in France. David and everyone back into.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
No Radio, No Problem stream is live on SAGA ninety
sixty am dot c A.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Welcome back everyone to the Brian Crombie Radio Hour. Were
chatting tonight with Pierre Jean s Advisory. He's an investment
banker from Paris, France. He's worked in New York, He's
worked in London, He's worked in Paris, he's worked for
big investment banks and he now runs his own some
banking and he's described his own personal challenge with cancer.
(34:04):
Actually haven't talked about that, but you've talked about how
it was funded and the welfare state in France. We've
talked a little bit about French politics. I thought highly
of the policies without knowing the politics of Sarcozzi and
of Macron, and you've described both gentlemen as as effectively corrupt,
which is interesting and sarcose, particularly indicted. I didn't realize
(34:28):
all of the indictments against him. I still thought highly
of Macran and so you know, it'll be interesting that
you say, is at what twenty percent popularity, which is,
as you said, close to zero. So, given the polarization
in France, given the sixty four percent of your GDP
that is taxed away, given the welfare state, given the
(34:51):
over six percent deficit that you've described six percent of
GDP deficit, what's your solution are you going to run?
Is that the solution? PJ for president?
Speaker 3 (35:02):
Why not just forg At one point, before we get
into it, do you know that for the first time
in the Republic of France, our previous President, your friend
mister Sakose is in jail, is in jail for the
last three weeks and it's been condemned to five years
(35:26):
in jail. Amazing. Just want to take you the latest
example of how our welfare state is really jeopardized, because
you would agree with that it's not a solution to
put taxis on taxis on taxis to address the ever
growing need of the community to maintain this type of insurance.
(35:50):
So the last example I give you has been at
the forefront of our country, at every level of our people,
the poor as well as the rich. It's called the
tax Zachman, the Zachman, the Zuckman, sorry, Zuckman, Zuckman tax.
Mister Zuckman is a prominent economist and is teaching at
(36:15):
the University of Berkeley, so you will expect something very
clever from him. So here is his proposal, very simple.
The context is that rich French people have increased their
assets that have valued their patrimony over the last twenty
years at an average rate of seven percent per animal.
(36:37):
As a result, they grow richer and richer when the
poor are growing poorer and poorer. In order to address
this injustice is lack of Justice. His proposal is the following.
Every French citizen that has an asset patrimony in excess
of one hundred million euros will pay every year two
(37:02):
percent of his patrimony in tax. Now, if you got
really rich people, you really better off if they stay
in the country of France. And what we're trying to
do with this is to expel them out of France
because they don't want to pay two percent. The problem
is that the poll that was made on this proposal
(37:24):
for tax get a favorable opinion from how much of
my how many of my cities and brain, how many
what's the percentage according to you are French people in agreement,
which is proposal to tax at two percent everything which
is higher than one hundred meterium? How many people? How much?
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Seventy percent?
Speaker 3 (37:49):
That's a close one eighty two percent. So the poor
are very happy because you're hurting the rich. And that's
what we want to do because our country is divided.
And that will explain my solution. And when you think
about it, if you have a startup where you raised
one billion on the value of one billion, but you
(38:12):
leave everything you're entrepreneur, you leave all the money in
the company. You don't get a salary, well you will
have to pay, in my example, twenty million per annum
and you have no money. It doesn't work anyways. So
what's the solution of BJ Well, we have to come
back to the basics. We have nobody that can support
(38:34):
a real transformation our welfare state. I think it's a
good demonstration. I gave you the second. We need to
reduce the level of coverage provided by our system, the
welfare state, by our much four to five points in
order to have a deficit in agreement with our commitment
(38:59):
with Europe. So we need to remove, in other words,
one hundred and fifty billion euros of spending per annum
and moving ourselves from sixty four to sixty. Now, as
I said, nobody can be behind this because there's nobody.
The ference is divided between the rich and the poor
(39:21):
and whatever. So we have no one to do the job.
We have no government that is supported by the people,
we have no clear majority in the parliament. Well, then
the solution is simple. Let's cast a referendum. The referendum
will be a list of expenses that the welfare state
(39:45):
is doing as we speak, and everybody will feel what
you think is the priority, and by our much it's
very easy to do and everybody will like a referendum.
The beauty of a referendum when compared to laws then
can be passed at the House of Parliament. As I said,
(40:08):
the House of Parliament is no longer recognized by the
French people. So if the French people do the job
and select themselves what should be reduced, what should be maintained,
and we use that to enact laws in conformity with
the poor. Well, my read, the people of France, the
(40:29):
citizen of France will not go in the street, they
will not go and strike because there will be the
one to decide what's going on. And all of this
in the context that we need to achieve altogether for
five percent reduction in our spending. So it will be
the condition and why it will be accepted. It will
(40:52):
be accepted because we all know that the debt that
we have, which is a besalt create it's too much.
This debt will be paid at the end of the
day by our kids. And I do trust that the
rich and the poor would agree on that we need
to address it, otherwise our kids will be in trouble.
(41:16):
You know that the rating of France has been decreased
over the last ten years from triple A double A plus,
double A double a minus and now we're considering A plus.
So it becomes very urgent to find a solution. And
my poor proposal is to call on a referendum addressing
(41:37):
what needs to be reduced.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Well, I think that referenda are an excellent way of
getting people involved. I worry that you need to have
a very simple question. And in Canada we have had
referendum on Quebec sovereignty, as you probably aware, and the
question wasn't wasn't well defined and and simple, and people
(42:00):
were confused by it and it came down to fifty
points something percent versus forty nine points something percent. It
was unbelievably close. And that's not the way to run
a country where your population is split almost fifty to
fifty on a question that was prely worded and ill defined.
And so that I think is the issue is that
(42:23):
you've got to have, if you go to the people,
a simple question. It's got to be well defined, it's
got to be understandable by everyone. There has to be
a good campaign where there are spending limits and so
that therefore money can't buy the result and I don't work,
I don't think, and it's going to be very difficult
(42:44):
for you to have a menu of a whole bunch
of options, and so, you know, one suggestion would be
if what you're saying is that the amount of money
that the federal government can take, that the French government
can take has to go from sixty four to sixty percent,
or that the deficit has to be reduced from six
percent of GDP to let's say five percent of GDP.
(43:08):
I think that that's the kind of question that the
people can answer in a referendum, and then the details
of exactly how might have to be worked out by
other people. Something like should the age of retirement go
from sixty three to sixty four, to sixty five, to
sixty six to sixty seven, you know, every year or
(43:30):
every two years over the course of the next couple
of years. That's a question that people could debate in
the public sphere and could vote on. I worry that
if you've got a whole bunch of options of how
you can reduce the welfare state, it's can be very
difficult to have a referendum where people can actually analyze
and figure things out. And I'm not suggesting that people
(43:54):
aren't smart. I think people are very smart. But in
a campaign where you've got a synthesize it all down
to a vote yes or no on something and then
go into a ballot box on one day, that's challenging.
And I think we've learned that because one of the
things that I think that we've learned over history is
that the market, the private market works And the reason
(44:18):
why the private market works is because people make decisions
based on price and quantity and quality every day, every
minute of every day over time. But in elections, you
make that decision once at one point in time, everyone
all together and it and win. It takes all. And
the example that someone in politics gave me said, think
(44:39):
about pepsi versus coke. If pepsi and coke got to
advertise for a year and spend a whole bunch of
money on advertisements for a year, and did a whole
bunch of taste tests for a whole year, and then
at the end of the year, on one day, you
all decided whether you're going to drink pepsi and coke
and pepsi one and made billions of dollars and Coke
(45:05):
went bankrupt or Coke had zero revenue for four years.
Our market wouldn't work. That's what politics is is a
whole bunch of people spend a whole bunch of money
and market like crazy, and then on one day we
all buy vote and the winner takes all. And I
(45:27):
think that's a system. They can't work and it ends
up being problematic. Now, referendum. You could have a referendum
every day and make it more like the private marketplace.
But people aren't going to participate every day. When we
do polls, what do we get one thousand people? Two
thousand people participate in a poll, So to do a
referendum every day is impossible. But I like your idea
(45:51):
and I think that having it based on some simple
question with an overriding objective and then let the people decide,
I think that that is a doable And in Canada,
in our last fair election, I think we actually had
a referendum. It wasn't positioned as it as a referendum,
but it was effectively that do Canadians want to stand
(46:13):
up to the threat of Donald Trump's tariffs? And people
overwhelmingly voted in favor of standing up to the Donald
Trump thread of terriffs. Anyway, PJ, excellent to chat with you.
Referend the market happened in the short term in France,
So what do you predicts can happen in the next
couple of months in France.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
Not to be pedentive, but my really is the following.
Who's h popularist, Who's a popular How many est the
cause of the popularists, which are the representing of the
people in the ancient room, The cause of the popular
(46:59):
is the cool of the people is the cause of
the Roman people. What you may not know is that
we did a reference. Last time, we did a referendum
fifteen years ago. The question was simple, Hey guys, do
you want to stay within Europe or do you want
to exit Europe. The decision of the people was we
(47:21):
want to exit Europe. As a result, it falls under
the law of France and the constitution and we should
have exited from Europe. What did Sarcus a year and
a half ago? He used the two houses of Parliament,
the Senate and the Keitty and when you reunite the
(47:41):
two of them in our constitution and you obtained sixty
percent decision on the point it becomes a law. So
the people of France last time they had been questioned
about what they want to do of the future, the
government did not pay attention. That government did not retained
the decision. My argument on everything. The country is divided
(48:06):
like he's never been. A referendum will regroup everyone. Of course,
it will be simple questions, by the way, I have
the experience inside.
Speaker 2 (48:15):
But a referendum in Britain created Brexit, and now everyone
regrets the decision. And then people would prefer to undo
what they decided a couple of years ago, but no government,
no party's got the guts to actually do it. But
I think everyone says it was a mistake.
Speaker 3 (48:34):
Winston Churchill has been famous for this. Following he said
when a journalist questioned him, he said, what do you
think of democracy? And you probably know this one Churchill did.
Democracy is the worst of the possible government of a country,
but there's nothing else. So granted, I do think that
(48:56):
the decision of the people of the UK was disastrous
for them, but it's the decision of the people, and
you can't have half a democracy. You gotta have and
sometimes you're going to get bad decisions when I was
in South Africa. We had the problem. I was a
citizen of South Africa. There was a pull about the
(49:18):
new president. Of course Mandela. It wasn't ninety four. Mandela
was ahead of them, but there was about twenty candidacy
and the problem for the ballot is that ninety percent
of the black people could not read, so they use pictures.
What I see in this referendum is pictures where you
(49:39):
say yes no about twenty questions, no more. And with
that you need a commitment. And by the way, you
should have told me that what's missing in my argument.
We need somebody to orchestrate that. Of course we don't
have We know it's not going to be a politician
because all of them are dead on the market. That's
(50:00):
the change. It's frankly, this is the way to solve
all our problems and become united into the umbrella of democracy,
republic and recovery of the attitude the thinking of the
people that are running in the country.
Speaker 2 (50:20):
Thank you so much for joining us. This has been
a fascinating conversation. I really appreciate it. This is really
interesting to hear from you what the challenges are in
France and take compare it to some of the challenges
that we've got us where really appreciate it. That's our
show for tonight, everybody, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1 (50:40):
Stream us live at SAGA nine sixty am dot CA.
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