FRANCE NOW
(French news in
English)
November 1999, Monthly, Issue No. 31
(Only highlighted
issues available for on-line consultation)
This month in search of an identity
Maurice Papon (80 years old) gives French police a
run for its money
Laetitia Casta as Marianne
Nobel Peace Prize to Médecins sans Frontières
The National Consultative
Committee for Ethics (NCCE)
Intra-Europe bilateral co-operation
: The Franco-German University
Stimulating researchers to innovate
their inventions
EAGGF : THE EUROPEAN AGRICULTURAL GUIDANCE AND
GUARANTEE FUND (FEOGA in French)
Helping victims of penal offences
The tax on cars and the automobile
profile of France
2 SEASONAL POEMS
The 35-hour week hots up
DASA merges with Matra-Aerospatiale
Futuroscope sold to Americans
The National Consultative
Committee for Ethics (NCCE)
Ethics - A study of what is
morally right and what is not.
When I learnt that there was a
National Ethics Consultative Committee, I wondered
what it did. Did it decide what is morally good and
bad for the nation? National morals! Then I discovered
that it was not national ethics but the Committee
which was national. Moreover, it was a consultative
committee because it could not make decisions, but
only provide opinions and recommendations based on
which the legislator could take action.
But
still: does one need a national committee to study
what is right and what is not? Is life so complicated?
Apparently, yes. Because the
committee does not go into mundane issues. It deals
with complicated scientific matters in the disciplines
of Health and Life Sciences. In fact the full name of
the NCCE is the National Consultative Committee for
Ethics in Health and Life Sciences. It was established
in 1983. Its functioning is now governed by a 1994
law. The Committee's mission is to provide opinions on
ethical problems raised by progress in the fields of
biology, medicine, and health, and to publish
recommendations on these subjects. To date, it has
published sixty-one opinions and recommendations. For
example, the latest report is on Xenotransplantation (see
box). Another interesting report was on Embryonic or
foetal reduction (see box).
Besides a few Presidents, the
Committee is composed of 39 members. Five of these
members are drawn from the main philosophical and
religious faiths and are designated by the President
of the Republic. Nineteen members are chosen because
of their qualifications, competence, and their
interest in ethical issues. Fifteen members are
engaged in scientific research.
Cases
are investigated by the Technical Section which is
composed of twelve members designated by the whole
Committee on the basis of the President's suggestions:
four of them are from the group of members qualified
by their competence regarding ethical matters, and the
remaining eight are amongst those engaged in
scientific research.
But, says Jean-Pierre Changeux, an
Honorary President of the NCCE, most of the
representatives of ethical disciplines and religious
faiths are also invariably scientific people, because
the diverse organisations nominating their
representatives all try to choose someone who would
understand the complicated issues involved. As a
result, much of the deliberation is scientific and the
ethical issues are designed based on the morals of
scientific researchers and not representative of
society as a whole.
Intra-Europe
bilateral co-operation
The Franco-German University
In a period where Europe is encouraging the free
movement of people, enterprises are obviously widening
their selection procedures to recruit the best
candidate from all over Europe. Multilingualism and
awareness of differences in culture and legal
frameworks of the different member countries,
especially the four large countries (Germany, UK,
France and Italy), have become the key selling points
of candidates. Private entrepreneurs have come in to
provide education with a multilingual approach. These
establishments are gaining recognition, especially
because many of them are patronised by large local
business houses, who ensure at least a few jobs.
The curriculum of these private
academic establishments, however, escapes national
homogenisation. In the name of multicultural business
education, they may not provide the quality education
that nationally certified institutes provide and which
business houses take for granted. Political chiefs
would therefore like to use this opportunity to
intervene and have their say. But for the local
business schools to conform to nationally or
bilaterally determined criteria, they would have to
receive subsidies as consideration for control.
Moreover, controlling all these little establishments
requires forming a centralised establishment aware of
the economic and commercial needs as well as
specialised in the different countries.
Till Europe's budget becomes large
enough that it can intervene directly in such
activities, all control has to be through bilateral
co-operation. An example is the creation of the
Franco-German University in September, this year.
The Franco-German University has
been created in Sarrebruck. The budget of the
University is funded by France and Germany. The
University has been created "to promote co-operation
between the two countries in Higher education and
research and to benefit from economies of scale (elimination
of indivisibility) in activities of common interest
relating to teaching, continuing education,
professional training and research, especially
doctoral research. Such joint educational policies are
evident in smaller Provinces of Eastern Canada. The
population of each of these Provinces is too small to
afford all the possible streams of education and one
Provincial university could specialise in some
technical subjects, while the other Province could
offer the remaining subjects. Students would therefore
travel to the appropriate university. However, it is
far from obvious that this is the case in either
France or Germany, both of which have a number of
larger universities offering all possible courses of
education.
Nevertheless, to meet the stated
objective, the new Franco-German University is
organising regular courses on its own campus. In
addition, it would develop a network of other
educational establishments in the two countries which
could offer some or all the courses certified by it as
equivalent. It would issue either two national
diplomas to the students, valid in the two countries,
or its own diploma which would also be valid in the
two countries. This diploma could be conferred by any
of the establishments in its network as long as they
are certified to provide national diplomas.
It would provide financial,
administrative and pedagogical assistance to
establishments who become members of the Franco-German
University network by providing programmes conforming
to the University's criteria.
The University council includes
four representatives of public administration, eight
professors and researchers, four representatives of
the Ministries of Foreign Exchange and of Education
and four members of the economic world. This council
determines the academic programmes.
Stimulating
researchers to innovate their inventions
Paul Krugman's strategic trade
theory is a takeoff from the infant industry argument.
It says that industries should be protected to obtain
first-mover advantage. Essentially, this means that
the person who first gets into a field with high
investments and large economies of scale, manages to
develop the infrastructure of component suppliers and
therefore retains leadership in manufacture. Therefore,
research should be patented and transformed rapidly
into patented innovation. This itself should be
exploited as fast as possible to increase the dynamic
comparative economies vis-à-vis other countries which
would soon copy the product. Thus, protection of key
technology industries is a strategic trade decision
for each nation.
Add to this that most new theories
of growth are endogenous in that they consider
research, invention and innovation as something which
can be influenced and not exogenous to the system.
Many of them now focus specially on knowledge-based
investment in education and research. They have
stressed the need to nurture innovation, and to
provide incentives for individuals to be inventive and
innovative. So, they argue for subsidising education,
research and development, and for providing incentives
for transforming R & D into commercially viable
products.
In France, the core team of
researchers, includes not only the much vaunted CNRS
and university researchers, but also those in other
government or public sector establishments, notably
telecommunications. The government is interested that
researchers transform the fruits of their research
into commercially viable products, which would then
offer France the first-mover advantage and all the
inherent dynamic strategic trade advantages. For this,
it has a policy of allowing specialist researchers to
move to and from research to industry and back-again.
A law passed in July is meant to further ease the
process of exchange of information and researchers
between academia and the commercial world.
French law permits a researcher to
create his own enterprise which will permit him to
exploit the fruits of his research. Of course, all
exchange of sensitive information and key research
personnel is subject to some controls. The object of
the enterprise has to be the exploitation of the
research of the researcher. The research itself is
owned by the establishment employing the researcher
(e.g. the university). The enterprise therefore has to
enter into a contract with this establishment. The
researcher also has to have the necessary approval
from his institute and has to stop his functions in
the public sector. Actually, he does not resign. He is
offered a detachment. This means that he continues to
be paid by the government and cannot accept any extra
remuneration from the newly created enterprise. He
also maintains the possibility of coming back to the
security of a safe government job. All this means that
the researcher has no personal financial stress and
can fully devote himself to the business of making his
invention work. Of course, after the period of the
detachment, the researcher has to decide whether he
wants to get back to research or stay with the new
enterprise after formally resigning from his
government function.
The law also permits a researcher
to offer technical advice to an established company
which wants to pay for the researcher's discoveries.
In this case also the innovating enterprise has to
enter into a contract with the government or public
establishment. The difference from the preceding case
is that the researcher does not leave his government
function. He gets additional pay from the private
enterprise. To make it interesting for enterprises,
the government is capping the amount the researcher
can receive from the enterprises. Permission for the
researcher to do this is granted for five years at a
time and can be renewed.
The law also permits the researcher
to take up to 15% of the capital of the enterprise
which is innovating on his research. But he cannot be
involved in the administration of such an enterprise
and retain his public sector position.
However, if the concerned company
is a public limited company, then the researcher may
be on the board of directors. This is done in a bid to
sensitise companies to use the fruits of the latest
research. But in such a case, the researcher is not to
provide any technical consulting. He can also not hold
more than the minimum number of shares required to be
on the board of directors. He can also not be paid for
such a position (except for meeting fees).
The law states that there will be a
system of transparency, supervised by an ethics
committee, to look into other market contracts between
the commercial enterprise and the public
establishment. For example, if the director of a
public establishment is hired as technical consultant
for a company providing stationary to that public
establishment. However, these are sensitive issues,
difficult to control, especially because of the
concept of controlling groups and a maze of
subsidiaries.
Besides stimulating researchers to
innovate, all these possibilities make the position of
government researcher even more prized and incite the
best minds to take this path.
The tax on cars
and the automobile profile of France
In 1956, France levied a tax on
motor-vehicles. Since 1984, the proceeds of this tax
have been distributed to localities although the tax
is collected by the State. The collection which was FF
8 billion in 1984 is now more than FF 13 billion. The
tax base is determined by the French State, which
determines the different categories of vehicles
depending on their horsepower and depending on their
age (0-5 years, 5 to 20 years, 20-25 years). However,
the rates for each category of vehicle are determined
by each department, with 3% added on by the State to
reimburse itself for collection charges. The tax
therefore varies from department to department. It is
interesting for people to register their car in Marne
(51) the department with the lowest tax ((FF 278 for a
5-7 hp "new" car) rather than in Ariège
(09) or Cantal (15), both of which had a tax of FF 600
for a similar car. This gives the range of the rate
for the modal category. Till recently, all the major
car-rental companies were registering their whole
fleet of cars in Marne, but now the place of
registration is determined by the place where the car
is first rented out. Cars older than five years are
taxed at half-rate compared to new cars (less than
five years of age). Cars older than 25 years are not
taxed at all. High horsepower cars can be taxed as
high as FF 15,332 (Vaucluse, for more than 23 hp). The
rate for really old cars (20 to 25 years) in Marne is
FF 57 for the year. Certain cars are exempt (like cars
of diplomats) and others have an exoneration or a
"free tax" (for example, taxis and cars of
commercial representatives). The tax has to be paid by
the 30th of November of each year.
The tax data for the vignette
(sticker), as this tax is called because of a tax
coupon which one sticks on the lower right-hand corner
of the windscreen, provides us with a profile of the
French automobile population. The statistics for
1996-97 indicate a total population of 33 million
cars. This compares with 24 million cars in 1982 and
less than 4 million in 1956. This means that the
growth rate of the French automobile market was 7.6%
per year in the 1956-82 period but levelled off to
1.9% in the 1982-97 period. The proportion of new cars
has gone down since 1984, mostly due to high prices,
high insurance costs and increase in petrol costs, but
also because the quality of cars has improved which
means that people don't have to sell their cars every
decade or so. Significantly, even the number of cars
in the new-car segment has gone down after peaking out
at 13.8 million in 1991-92, but it is believed that
the peak was postponed artificially by the bonus
offered by the government for exchanging old cars for
new. Today, age-wise, 61% of French cars are older
than five years and 39% are new (0 to 5 years).
Power-wise, 83% are less than seven
horsepower, of which 63% are in the medium category
(5-7 horsepower). This compares with 54% of medium
size cars (5-7 hp) in 1983, indicating that the French
have slowly come to prefer this type of car compared
with the smaller (too small for family) or larger (too
expensive to maintain) cars. Of the balance 17% of the
car population, the 8 to 9 hp category accounts for
9%. Only 1% of the French automobile market is more
than 17 hp.
Source: Notes bleues de Bercy #
151, tax rates have not been actualised.
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