JACQUES CHIRAC - THE WORLD POLICEMAN

Jacques Chirac has demanded that the U.S. sign the Kyoto protocol or else a carbon tax on imports from countries that have not signed the Kyoto accord (the U.S. included) will be imposed. Such an absurd carbon taxation would seriously violate the international trade rules while a unified carbon tax would have a damaging impact on the competitiveness of the EU which is strongly hampered by high levels of tax burden. France is no exception. Jacques Chirac's acts concerning environmental protection are very far from being equal to his words. In fact, Jacques Chirac has publicly supported farmers whose emissions present an enormous amount of pollution. Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is a statist experiment which protects European farmers against global competition while recent studies have shown that a great proportion of pollution in Europe is caused by dusty disposable farm emissions in the environment which affects clean water and other sources of life as well. It is very odd that Jacques Chirac is voicing so loudly against the countries that did not signed the Kyoto protocol while on the other side, he rampantly stands tall with French agricultural lobby that aims to work on rent seeking through political support. He also conducted nuclear tests in a Pacific atoll back in 1995. Jacques Chirac has aggressively stood against free-market reforms proposed in Europe. He supported harmful protectionist policies and demanded that tax competition is a crime. From this perspective, an enormous amount of budget outlays is contributed to farmers in the form of farm subsidies while on the other side, the story of the most competitive economy until 2010 is becoming more like a turnpike, waiting to be blown away as well as France's poor economy is loosing its cliff on the level of global competitiveness.