When first elected Nicolas Sarkozy proceeded, with uncommon alacrity, to pull out of the mothballs every socialist from the Mitterand era who was in need of making a comeback. He picked for his ministries and his commissions names known to all for their irresponsibility, lack of good judgment and indifference to French traditional values. One of these was Jacques Attali, former economic adviser to Mitterand, and known as “the man who is never right.” A good choice, since Sarkozy seems to get along better with socialist misfits than with conservative men of quality.

He placed Attali at the head of a commission on how to liberate economic growth, an interesting topic to assign to a socialist. Reuters reports that the “relaunching of immigration in France” is one of recommendations of the commission for the liberation of growth, presided over by Jacques Attali. Relaunching??? But immigration was never stopped!

The Attali Commission, at work for the past four months, is expected to turn over its conclusions and about 300 proposals to President Nicolas Sarkozy on January 23. Jean-Marie Le Pen immediately denounced the proposal as “absurd and criminal,” typical of the immigration policy in effect for the last 30 years, which resulted, he says, in “ten million foreigners” coming to France. “There is a political alternative [...] which is to create French people in France, in other words, to encourage French births,” Le Pen said on LCI, calling Jacques Attali a “globalist” [“mondialist”].

A few weeks ago in an interview with La Tribune, Jacques Attali declared: “France needs immigration. We have to open our doors to workers from Eastern Europe, to the Chinese, to the countries of Africa. Otherwise, all our fine discussions on how to finance retirement pensions will be meaningless.”

The conservative Parisian newspaper Le Figaro writes that the Attali Commission recommends “facilitating the granting of visas to foreigners,” in order to respond to a tense labor market and because immigration “is itself a source of creation of wealth, hence of growth.” Nicolas Sarkozy advocates a controlled immigration, with the establishment of quotas. The ministry of Immigration recently published a circular concerning a possible amnesty for those undocumented aliens who are already working in France.

Figaro readers are unrestrained in their displeasure against Attali. Here are four comments:

- What a sad horror! I go into a rage when I think that this pseudo expert, an inventor of nothing, will be paid with my taxes while my three children are unemployed and I can’t pay my bills.
 
- My God. Pity them, “they” have gone mad.
 
- Mr. Attali is reputed as being a brilliant man, considering his diplomas. And Mr. Sarkozy likes people who have a reputation for being brilliant. So Mr. Sarkozy will no doubt be inclined to listen to Mr. Attali’s advice. May he think twice, for pity’s sake! For the 30 years that he has been giving “advice,” Mr. Attali has never advised anything good. He lives on his own planet. This man is very dangerous.
 
- This must be the most ridiculous government we have ever had.

Read more about the amazing Mr. Attali in my previous posts, here and here.