(Psst, Wanna Brand New Law?) France has Bargains Galore!

France is well-known for its wonderful achievements in many fields of human endeavour, and one of  its most outstanding “successes” must surely be its capacity to churn out enormous quantities of much-needed legislation, legislation often created as a result of public outcry, then, then....uh, then...Well, nothing.

Successive French governments have, over the last twenty-something years, voted literally hundreds of important laws, often hastily drafted because of the urgency of a given situation. However, when the furour that led to their being voted calmed down, they were quite simply filed away discreetly and the necessary Application Decrees, which ensure the funding and practical implementation of  laws here, have never been drafted and circulated.

This has resulted in a situation where between thirty and fifty percent (depending on how you calculate it, see link above) of all law voted here since the eighties is lying around in government vaults, and the abuse, malpractice, illegal activity etcetera that they were supposed to combat continues unabated.

Some of this law is (or should have been) of vital importance. Here are a few examples.

The Protection of Children law, (link above) voted in February 2007 and designed to reduce child abuse, has never been applied. It was voted at least partially as a result of a string of highly-publicised cases of child sexual abuse.

The law on the Computer storage of Personal Information, first voted in 1978 and regularly updated since, as and when new issues come to light, contains a large number of unapplied sections. This means that your personal information is much more compromised than it should be according to the law, but you can’t do anything about it.

A wide-ranging law supposed to contain sweeping improvements to past legislation which didn’t do anything to oblige local authorities to help those thousands of families in desperate need of housing, or decent housing, which was first floated after a homeless people scandal a few years back highlighted France's chronic housing crisis, has been largely watered down since, and many of its more costly clauses will never be ratified.

The Borloo Law of 2003, designed to curtail serious abuse by loan companies which leaves thousands of poorer people in inextricable debt, has never been implemented in ninety percent of national territory.
Moreover, and how sick is this, if you go to the link I chose, which concerns one man’s story of how he got into horrendous debt, you have a good chance of getting the pop-up I got. It sells..credit!!

And the list goes on and on. Laws to protect the environment and endangered species, a law to modernise the economy, a law promising funding to poor areas of big towns, another to control violent dog ownership (voted after the death of two children, mauled to death by dogs), none of them have been applied. It’s an almost endless list.

This is an abuse of power. Governments are elected to enact and implement law. Their job is to create laws that the French demand. They are not doing that. They vote laws to buy votes and to appease public opinion, then they abuse the public by not ensuring their application, notably when the law concerned needs substantial funding.

But that’s not all. Jean-Luc Warsmann, the President of the Government Commision on Laws voted by the French Parliament, had the affrontery at the beginning of February to propose yet another law. This law, however, has every chance, if voted, of being applied, and quick. Are you sure you want to read what it proposes? Ok, you asked for it...

His proposed law would, quite simply, give the government the power to abrogate any law not applied within three years of its being voted!! In other words, a law to undo laws that the government was asked to vote and implement by the people of France who elected them into office!

Now that's a perfect example of the cynical abuse of democracy if ever I saw one....