Houston, we have a solution! But where was the problem?
Erik Van Rompay
Cofondateur du club privé 220DOTS - Dubai. Je assiste les Family Offices/UHNWI/HNWI et Entrepreneurs à travailler sur leurs projets de financements ou acquisitions de biens.
We all heard of the actual situation in France and the so-called resistance of the French people to the presented new-pension scheme. A so-called resistance as things aren’t presented properly.
The French government presented a solution without exposing the problem and during the presentation of the plan, they also announced that it needed pedagogy to convince the French population. And it was also extremely urgent!?
With this, the government has created 3 different conflicts with a population that isn’t aware of the problem to be solved and that the people in the street doesn't have sufficient intelligence to understand the proposal. And for these “unaware” people in the street, the real emergency is inflation, an item the French government doesn’t seem to consider as important.
In a normal world (democracy but also business world), we start with the identification of the problem and then start the discussion around possible solutions. But no, in France, it's impossible to create such a constructive discussion.
The French do not know how to debate (since centuries).
French people have a bad cultural approach. Instead of creating an environment of dialogue where people exposes their point of view and create exchanges of ideas and solutions, everyone exposes their point of view.
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As Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) clearly defined it some 250 years ago, it is a question of asserting one's ideas, not to convince the other but to seduce a third party. The only winner, still following Rousseau, is public opinion.
Today, members of the government, parliament, senate and trade unions still practice that Rousseauism. From morning to evening on all French TV channels, they don’t communicate to find solutions, they don’t listen to the other speakers… they only talk to convince a TV audience they don't see. So nothing can move foreward.
To have a good debate, people must first define a problem that needs to be solved. But with the government pushing their “Houston we have a solution but you are not aware you have a problem” does not create the necessary conditions.
Two months after the announcement of the new pension plan in France, we are still in the phase of parties that don't speak to each other and try to convince the public opionion... just like Rousseau mentionned it.
Seen all these cultural attitudes, all of this will deliver a very poor political environment in France, closer to a Commedia de l'Arte democracy Act than the one defined during the French revolution in 1789… and you can’t blame Jean-Jacques Rousseau for that. Let him rest in peace.