French President Nicolas Sarkozy is calling for improved regulation of financial markets and globalization to get the world out of its economic slump. Mr. Sarkozy is one of nine heads of state and government participating in a three-day Global Jobs Crisis Summit organized by the International Labor Organization in Geneva.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy warns the world will not easily emerge from the worst global economic crisis since World War II if it does not learn the lessons of history and change its way of doing business.
He says governments cannot wait for economic, financial, social and ecological issues to become a major global political crisis before taking action. He says the financial and globalization systems are unworkable and in need of better regulation.
The French President says we need standard rules which apply to everyone. He says it is not a question of harmonizing all employment legislation or of imposing the social norms of rich countries on poor countries. He says it is a matter of creating a system of rules, which will pull everyone up instead of pulling everybody down.
President Sarkozy says globalization will not survive what he calls the law of the jungle. He says there cannot be freedom and liberty without rules. And he warns of political and social unrest if the economic system is not just. He dismisses critics who do not want to change and claim that it is a pipe dream to believe a socially just system is achievable.
On the contrary, he says it is irresponsible to believe that the financial crisis is just a temporary glitch in the system and that everything will go back to the way it was before.
The French president says it is a pipe dream to think that a financial system based on the speculation, unsustainable high yields and dumping which have harmed globalization can continue indefinitely.
He denounces the golden parachutes and outrageous bonuses given to captains of industry who got the world in the financial mess it is in.
President Sarkozy calls for the US president to take the lead in helping the world recover. He says America must be the most ambitious of all countries, because that is what America does well.
He notes multi-lateralism, regulation and globalization are ideas that stem from U.S. Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He encourages governments to embrace change by quoting Roosevelt, who during the Great Depression said the "only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
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