France, like the EU, is mired in dysfunction

What would propel an Albanian, whose family is safely in France, to clamber aboard a dangerous dinghy and venture through the crowded shipping lanes, swell and chop, of the Channel? What reason would anyone find, when their families are near Calais, to load their children on board such a vessel? What is it, we are entitled to ask, that lures so many migrants to British shores, when they could remain in safety in France?

The 18 Albanian migrants who were rescued on Saturday night are hardly the first to have risked life and limb making the journey to Britain. Think of the desperate groups huddled near the Channel Tunnel in the “Jungle” camp before it was pulled down. Think of Abdul Rahman Haroun, the Sudanese man who preferred to risk death by walking 31 miles through that tunnel than to stay where he was. Why?

For the answer, look no further than the streets of France today. Once again protesters are manning braziers and picket lines as their government tinkers with the repressive labour laws. A moribund, top-down approach to wealth creation stifles innovation; any attempt at change brings the country to a standstill. Police and protesters have exchanged blows. Six of France’s eight oil refineries have been blocked. Forty per cent of petrol stations have been affected. The misery is about to extend to train services and air traffic controllers, and threatens to disrupt the Euro 2016 football tournament. When asked why bureaucratic wrangling meant rain-lashed Roland Garros was the only Grand Slam tennis tournament not to have a roof on its main stadium, the tournament director, Guy Forget, replied simply: “Welcome to France”.

And yet François Hollande, who as president oversees this palimpsest of dysfunction, last weekend became the latest foreign leader to offer his unwanted advice to British voters, saying ominously that “the forces of division” threaten to destroy Europe and that Britons should thus vote to Remain in the EU. In fact, division emerges where significant numbers of voters sense that their wishes are not being taken into account; that their entrepreneurialism is being suffocated; and that those who govern are distant, unaccountable, and unwilling or unable to deliver the reform needed to harness the astonishing opportunities of the global economy. In that way, the frustrations that reformers feel in France mirror the frustrations that many in Britain feel about the EU.

The Albanians in their dinghy knew it; Abdul Rahman Haroun knew it. France does not offer the opportunities that the UK does. They do not want to shackle themselves to a moribund system, and so they risk death to come here. And the situation, from the French perspective, is likely to get worse. This is the key to the referendum debate. We have heard many warnings about the horrors if we vote to leave. Project Fear asserts that it is impossible to know what leaving will bring, and that voting Out is gambling with the nation’s future. This incessant scaremongering has deprived voters of the clear, fact-based debate that they deserve. And one fact should be trumpeted above all others: it is equally impossible to know what staying in will bring.

The vaulting ambition of the EU project, as Steve Hilton writes opposite, means we cannot forecast what membership will mean in 10, 20 or 50 years. The French President may wish us to stay, but France remains wedded to bureaucracy and to the EU. For some of its vested interests, such as those farmers who have been such beneficiaries of the bloated Common Agricultural Policy budget, it is easy to see why. But like the Albanians, many of its citizens know that employment, and progress, are easier on this side of the Channel. Those citizens are no happier than we with the prospect of uncontrolled immigration, unrepresentative leaders and a system that makes democracy impossible. Let us hope they find a solution to their difficulties. In the meantime, when we go to the polls, Britons should remember that neither In nor Out can offer the status quo.