French PM opposes transatlantic trade deal as against "EU interests"

[transatlantica]

Source: Agence France Press

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls on Sunday blasted a planned EU-US trade treaty, saying the ambitious deal was against "EU interests."

"No free trade agreement should be concluded if it does not respect EU interests. Europe should be firm," Valls told members of the governing Socialist Party, adding "France will be vigilant about this."

"I can tell you frankly, there cannot be a transatlantic treaty agreement. This agreement is not on track," Valls said.



Read more: https://www.afp.com/en/news/15/french-pm-opposes-transatlantic-trade-deal-against-eu-interests

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Plain language. So TTIP is dead, right?

[FLPanhandle]

1. It's the French just being French.

Is there any nation that personifies the word "Petulance" more than the French?

[transatlantica]

3. this is clearly a Brexit fallout

The French PM lets the Brits feel that they are out now. They have no say.

[bemildred]

4. M. Valls is defending his own political butt from similar fallout, is what M. Valls is doing. nt

[transatlantica]

5. you don't like M. Valls, do you?

In which way does he "defend his own political butt" (whatever that means) by speaking out against TTIP?

[bemildred]

6. Because supporting TTIP in France is a political loser.

And he doesn't want to go down with it.

[transatlantica]

7. okay

but he never said that before, and Brexit was clearly the trigger.

[bemildred]

8. Quite so. I expect more of the same, and not just in France.

The subject is on the table now.

[AntiBank]

11. No, he has been critical of it before the Brexit ever happened

France warns over EU-US trade pact
By AFP

PUBLISHED: 17:50 GMT, 26 April 2016 | UPDATED: 17:50 GMT, 26 April 2016


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-3559699/France-demands-EU-US-trade-pact-guarantees.html


France emerged Tuesday as a leading voice of scepticism over plans for a US-EU free trade zone covering 850 million people, bluntly warning it will not accept a deal that lowers standards for people's health and the environment.

Flying in the face of US President Barack Obama's call for a groundbreaking deal to be wrapped up this year, senior members of the French government said there was no urgency and, indeed, the likelihood of striking any pact at all is waning.

Negotiators are this week sitting around a table in New York seeking a way forward to create the world's biggest free trade area covering the United States and Europe, which has been under discussion since 2013. They aim to topple remaining trade tariffs, which are already relatively low.

But, far more challenging, they must agree on streamlined rules for politically sensitive areas such as product standards, genetically-modified crops, the environment, consumer protection, how to decide disputes between big business and states, and how to treat jealously guarded geographically-based brand names like champagne.

- Chance of a deal 'fading' -

"I want to be clear: it will not succeed if it does not guarantee that the standards we have in France for our citizens' health and environment will be maintained," French Prime Minister Manuel Valls told an environmental conference in Paris.

Earlier, asked about whether a deal may be reached before the end of Obama's term in January 2017, Matthias Fekl, France's minister of state for foreign trade, told broadcaster RTL: "No, I don't think so. The likelihood, or risk, of reaching any accord is fading."

Fekl, who is France's envoy to the talks, added that there was no desire in Europe to "sign up to anything at any price".

snip


Also Labour in the UK was against it (as are millions upon millions of left wing people like myself here all across Europe)




Want to save the NHS from TTIP? Vote to Leave the EU

By Kelvin Hopkins
June 13, 2016 13:43 BST

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/want-save-nhs-ttip-vote-leave-eu-1564821

Jeremy Corbyn recently said he would veto a trade deal called 'TTIP' if he became leader. He is right to do that. This deal is a major threat to British jobs, working people and public services, especially the NHS. But it will not be possible for Jeremy to veto this deal if we remain a member of the EU. We will be forced to accept its damaging consequences.

TTIP is a trade deal that is currently being negotiated behind closed doors between the EU and US. It will make it easier for American companies to access British and EU industries – from healthcare to manufacturing – and vice versa. As with all trade deals, it will mean giving American companies unrestricted access to sectors of our economy in return for them doing the same.


This will, of course, benefit large multinationals in America and the EU, who will use it to grow even bigger, make more money, and shift jobs from Europe to the US, where workers' rights and protections are weaker. We know this is the case because a similar deal between America and Mexico, NAFTA, led to the displacement of almost 700,000 jobs from the US to low-wage Mexico.

Most worryingly, this trade deal is being stitched up away from the eyes of the public, as well as democratically elected politicians. Career bureaucrats in Brussels who we do not know – and, more than likely, are not British – are bargaining away access to many of our key industries, industries that support the jobs of millions of people across the country. The safety and security of millions of working people is being jeopardised to enable multinational companies and their rich shareholders to make bigger profits.

One of the sectors American conglomerates are most interested in is Britain's healthcare system, the NHS. These corporations recognise there is big money to be made from people's illnesses and distress. If the giant healthcare companies in America had their own way, they would grab huge swathes of our health services and over time do away with the concept of healthcare 'free at the point of use', introducing fees for GP appointments.

snip


Here is an article from a year ago showing direct linkage to the EU neoliberal stances fracturing the left support of it and that TTIP and other factors are themselves driving support for the far right. Valls himself is unpopular due to his internal austerity programmes in France itself, austerity programmes mandated by the EU.

So many Americans simply do not understand that many many on the left here detest the EU and all these trade agreements NOT because of xenophobia or racist nationalism, but simply because they are horrid in many ways for workers, unions, interference in individual nations sovereignty over our rules and laws, and against genuinely left wing economic policies for the lower classes.


France’s Socialists say ‘non’, ‘no’, ‘nein’! to TTIP

By Aline Robert | EurActiv.fr | Translated By Samuel White 9 Jun 2015

http://www.euractiv.com/section/trade-society/news/france-s-socialists-say-non-no-nein-to-ttip/


Disunity on European issues within France’s governing party on European issues was once again laid bare at the party congress in Poitiers last week. Opposition to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is one of the rare points of consensus among the Socialist Party. EurActiv France reports.

The French Socialist Party has struggled to agree a common line on European policy since the failed referendum on the EU Constitution in 2005.

The party’s vocal left wing is equally critical of the EU’s economic stance, seen as too liberal, (my note , liberal here is used in the European sense, as in neoliberal, corporatist free trade, etc) and the French government’s unwillingness to challenge it.

This topic was picked up by dissenters, including the former industry minister Arnaud Montebourg, who called for a coalition of European countries to implement a strategy of “lowering taxes to help families”. The call was published in an editorial co-signed with investment banker Matthieu Pigasse, one of the three main shareholders of the Le Monde newspaper.

“The absurd conformism” of the EU executive’s policy “has become a giant vote factory for the National Front,” Montebourg and Pigasse wrote in in Le Journal Du Dimanche, a Sunday paper.

In Poitiers, it became clear that Prime Minister Manuel Valls’ mild austerity measures had eroded the government’s support within the party. Anti-austerity feeling and solidarity with Greece and Spain was palpable at the conference. Gérard Collomb, the mayor of Lyon, was heckled by left wing party members for his criticism of Syriza and Podemos.

No to austerity, no to TTIP

Socialist party Secretary General Jean-Christophe Cambadélis tried to bridge the gap between his party’s expectations and his government’s actions.



snip

[awoke_in_2003]

12. We wouldn't be a nation

without the "petulant" French.

[Calista241]

2. If there's any trade deal that's good

it would be this one. People there are for the most part fairly compensated, and there wouldn't be a huge advantage for companies to move factories around to take advantage of a cheaper workforce.

Just my laymen's, mostly uninformed opinion.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

9. The Socialists are going to be obliterated in the next election

So no, not dead.

[Igel]

10. That party is split.

Valls was speaking not as prime minister, but in a run-up to a party convention on what he believes.

So he found something they can all rally behind: "We don't want a trade deal with the US." La plus ca change ...

And with "we're the only Socialist government in France, so we have to help all the other parties like ours in Europe."


Hollande is still stuck with divided public opinion.