The Patriot Post® · Obama: President of France

Mona Charen: “Barack Obama’s sixth State of the Union address was an homage to France. The president might not have intended it as such – he mentioned the nation only glancingly when denouncing terror attacks in Pakistan and Paris. Yet France was at the heart of the president’s address. … France is Obamaland. Government sucks up 56 percent of GDP. The state offers cradle-to-grave subsidies for child care, health, disability, unemployment, old age and more. The welfare state discourages work in myriad ways – most French retire at age 60, and many at 55. The workweek is 35 hours. (Obamacare defines it as 30 hours.) France’s labor code is 3,600 pages long (sound familiar?) and makes it practically impossible to fire anyone. Shockingly, businesses are wary about hiring. France’s growth rate has averaged .3 percent annually since 2008. Everyone from taxi drivers to notary publics to dentists goes on strike at the drop of a chapeau. All of this looks like paradise to Obama. … France has its virtues, but the policies Obama admires have brought the nation stagnation, unemployment, high taxes, constant strikes, restive and unassimilated immigrants, and domestic terrorism. The French don’t seem to know what went wrong. Our president doesn’t, either.”