China in France and the Coming Changing of The Guard

This week France received the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, to great pomp and circumstance for his first ever State visit in France. No expense was spared in welcoming the head of the second most powerful country and the fastest growing economy in the world. As usual there is always a little hypocrisy involved when the head of a western country receives a Chinese delegation, there were no mention of human rights etc. a stark contrast let's say if Hollande were to receive the President of Cameroon or any other impoverished nation, human rights would be at the forefront.

Hollande gave the Chinese President such a warm welcome as he brought with him 200 heads of Chinese enterprises that signed contracts with French companies, a welcome situation given the very poor economic performance of the French Republic. China is a rising nation and all developed nations are pushing to trade with them as Chinese power can only grow while the traditional old western order continues its erosion. Another reason of course is that on the political side, with the bad economic performance of France and Hollande failing to reverse the upward trend of unemployment numbers as promised, it was necessary for him to show the French that he was president still capable of making good deals for France. It is crucial as France is going through its midterm municipal elections that are often used the gauge the sentiment of the population towards the party in  power. Hollande's Party Socialiste (PS), badly needs this as there are polls showing that they might lose more seats, they are currently going through a terrible humiliation as they lost Marseille, the second largest French City, in the first round of elections.

Also coming next week is the remainiement ministeriel, which means the ministerial rearranging. Basically some ministers are sure to be replaced and the biggest among them is Jean Marc Ayerault, the current prime minister who is sure to go, hopefully replaced by Martine Aubry. The big ministers like Manuel Valls of defense, Christiane Taubira of Justice and Arnaud Montebourg of Industrial renewal are to remain. While there are rumors of a Segolene Royal ministry. Rumors are also that the government is to be reduced from 38 ministers to between 15 and 20 a great idea as the size of the current government had been an issue in coordinating and streamlining government minister. Despite it's tiny size of the electorate, the Europe Ecologie Les Vert (Ecologists) Party seems poised to keep couple of its ministers in the government. This change of government is good as it will give Hollande a change to sort of start anew with a smaller and more united government. The feuding of ministers, the unpopularity of the government and the incompetence of the Ayerault-led government have been outstanding and hopefully this change will mark the end of it all.

France has had a rather difficult time out of the big powers in dealing with its economic crisis and chronic unemployment. Hopefully these deals with China will go a little way in redressing the economy. The changing of Ministers will also hopefully improves government performance and deliver good result to the French public. As for me the next weeks will be very interesting as heads will roll, and the chances of an Aubry prime ministership rise, I will be following it closely and will update you on my little blog.