Beware the Hollande way

The news that the French economy has officially entered recession upon the second anniversary of Francois Hollande’s Presidency serves as a pertinent warning sign for Joseph Muscat’s apparently warm relationship with the French leader. One can only hope that meetings between the two leaders are confined to the virtues of French cheese and wine rather than to matters of economic strategy.

Hollande has, almost singlehandedly, managed to transform his citizens into a collection of les miserables thanks in large part to his ill-advised ‘wealth tax’, which has shown the door to anyone with an entrepreneurial flair. In 2012, at least 10,000 French taxpayers were forced to pay more in tax than they actually earned, Beware the Hollande way and London has now become France’s sixth largest city!

As the late British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, had once remarked, the problem with Socialists is that, at the end of the day, they would run out of other people’s money.