Journees du Patrimoine

School has formerly begun with tutorials, lectures and readings. The courses are composed of either lectures and tutorials or just simply tutorials. The list of courses I have chosen includes:

International Organisations and Global Governance is a course on NGOs as well as IGOs and is taught by a Canadian French who has previously served in the artillery corps in the Canadian Army and was also a 'casque bleu' in Lebanon.

Globalisation, States and Financial Markets is a course taught in French by 2 professors; a director general of a French policy think-tank and a director from Aviva, a insurance company.

The Current Finacial and Economic Crisis is a course taught in French by a professor who was advisor and consultant to the government and several large French MNCs (eg. Total) in addition to previous being the vice president of an advisory board for a ministry.

Social Studies of Finance is a course taught by 2 professors alternately; a professor who was a compliance officer on the trading floor of one of the French banks and a professor who is also teaching sociology in eonomics and business in another school and has served in a Commission under the EU.

Economic Theories of the Firm is taught by a professor who also teaches at HEC Paris.

Economics of Transition is taught in French by a professor who specialises in agricultural economics and transitional economies (eg. former Soviet republics).

The professors in Sciences Po are people who have experience with whatever they teach as opposed to the rather formalised theoretical approach that Tilburg University uses in its curriculum. Hence, a brief course overview suggests that the professors here are more inclined to the practical and real life applications of a certain field of knowledge. Since I have studied in UvT in the last two years, the theoretical training which I have received gives me a strong background knowledge of the theories. For now, I just need to work on applying those theories.

The last weekend was also 'Les journees du Patrimoine' in Paris, and to end my post, I hereby attach some photos taken of the interior of the National Assembly, The Senate and the Presidential Palace respectively.

Des greves et des manifestations

Are the French revolutionaries? Are the French always dissatisfied? This is the popular perception of the French people that we obtain from the news and from the media; the French are always doing something to express their unhappiness and not working instead. Although we rarely hear of strikes and demonstrations back in good ole Netherlands, that does not imply that they do not exist!

The cause of the last and the upcoming strike planned for the 23rd September was due to Sakorzy's idea of raising the retirement age from 60 to 62 in an effort to curb the bugetary deficit and the growing national debt amongst a range of other measures including possible tax hikes. Critics and the common folk alike have labeled this increase in retirement age 'unfair'. Popular arguments include:

1. 'People at the age of 60 are going to be laid off anyway, and that creates unemployment.'
2. 'This is an unjust burden on SMEs.'
3. 'What will happen to people who are already in the late 50s? This is not fair for them!'

As a economist-in-training in Sciences Po, a school for political science (they simply cannot co-exist huh?!), there are definitely economic arguments (which the ruling incumbents used) to justify this:

1. The life expectancy has increased in the last decades, so keeping the retirement age at 60 would mean the state runs a larger deficit paying out pensions OR
2. The state covers this gap by increasing taxes elsewhere in the economy. This has naturally unwanted side effects on investment and job-creation, which hinders economic recovery OR
3. The government reduces pension payouts (attempted political suicide).
4. If the debt goes out of control, France can no longer borrow at favourable interest rates on the world market due to favourable ratings (according to rating agencies, who gave AAAs to toxic mortgage subprime loans).
5. Then France will end up like Greece, because the Greeks have been retiring at 55 and receiving pensions at 105% of their last drawn salary (not to mention that their military expenditure was declared 'state secret').

But really, those arguments are justified on the side of the pension economics. What about the all the other parts of the government expenditure?

1. Sakorzy was accused of being 'le president des riches' because he recently decided to reduce the ceiling of taxation from 60% to 50%.
2. The president earns 20 thousand euros a month but most of his expenditures (food, clothes, transport etc.) are paid for by the state. In addition, Sakorzy also receives a pension (while he is still the president!) from his previous tenure as mayor of Paris. Ministers, Senators and Representatives all alike.
3. There was much waste in the government and a recent published memo circulated from Elysees ordered ministries and bureaucracies, many of which have exceeded their legal limit anyway, to reduce their staff.
4. A scandal erupted earlier this year when a junior minister without portfolio was found to have 2 chaffeurs at his disposal (which is against the rules).

In spite of all of the media coverage France receives, she is only ranked 10th in the world in terms of number of strikes (Surprise surprise!). Another surprise is that Denmark, Norway, Iceland, even Canada and South Korea are all ahead of France, according to www.nationmaster.com/graph/lab_str-labor-strikes. In stark contrast however are the Netherlands and Germany; these countries have far less (almost none) by comparison to the abovementioned countries.

This is probably a result of a cultural difference as one of my French teachers quaintly puts it 'The Dutch and the Germans prefer to talk things over before they decide whether to act, whereas the French prefer to rattle sabres before they negotiate.'

We will see whether this 'sabre-rattling' strategy is going to make Sarkozy change his mind on the 23rd...

Strike...

Almost the entire country is on strike and demonstration today (and I really do mean transport and some teachers included), in order to protest against the upcoming pension reform that the French government needs to implement in order to curb the widening budget deficit.

On a more cheerful perspective, my 'Cours de methodologie' was concluded on last Saturday. It was extremely important to follow this course because the working methods of Sciences Po are vastly different from those of our university. With any social science or even economics, in which there are no clear answers most of them time, the French follow the method of Descartes; that is to say, they attempt to answer a question with a question and so on. Hence in Science Po we work with three methods which embrace the Cartesian philosophy;

Expose

An 'Expose' is an oral dissertation which lasts 10 minutes and is generally centered on a given subject. It needs to be presented in a typical French these anti-these fashion. The structure is as follows:

1. Introduction of the subject and the motion that you would like to address.

2. Thesis - Why this motion should stand?

3. Anti-thesis - Why this motion should NOT stand?

4. Conclusion - Open another possible motion for discussion as a result of your expose.

Fiche de Lecture

This is written assignment that should contain no more than two pages revolving around one or more texts which the professor will assign for reading. It contains:

1. A short introduction.

2. Summary of the key points in the text(s).

3. Your point of view; critique.

4. Conclusion; a possible

All of which should never be written from a personal perspective; ie the use of 'je' or 'nous' is forbidden.

Fiche technique

This is also a written assignment that should also not go beyond the 2 page limit. The 'Fiche technique' is a research assignment with no fixed structure. It requires the students to read widely, but only present the main points of a certain book/paper on the assignment; summarise the book or paper in 3 lines for example (Mission Impossible, I know!). In addition, a critique is also required of the information accquired from the research material.

All of the above are given as weekly assignments; the students will be assessed continously, which is a sharp departure from Universiteit van Tilburg. All of these weekly assignments carry a heavy weightage on the final grade whereas in Tilburg the heaviest bearing on your grade is the final exam. In addition, Tilburg requires its students to conduct extensive research to present a paper for a semester whereas in Sciences Po, the school requires constant extensive research!

It all makes sense considering the library of Sciences Po is the largest in Europe for economics, social sciences and international affairs; we need to maximise the usage of this rich collection! To

round off, here are some pictures of the neighbourhood of the school.