Latest news: France August 2008

Eastern promise 

President Sarkozy has announced that from 1 July 2008 France will open its labour market to Central and Eastern Europe, a year earlier than expected. Sarkozy confirmed he will lift all the restrictions that were put in place when the eight EU members (the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia) joined four years ago. The French labour market will remain restricted to migrants from more recent members, Romania and Bulgaria, who joined the EU only last year.

A London address

So successful was Sarkozy’s first presidential visit to London, he will now be a permanent fixture in the UK – in the shape of a waxwork at Madame Tussauds. He joins other high-ranking international politicians including German chancellor Angela Merkel and US president George Bush. Madame Tussauds expects the French president to go down well with the many French visitors as well as the British following his recent visit.

Rising inflation

The French institute of statistics, INSEE, announced the latest consumer price index for the month of May. Overall the consumer price index showed an increase of 0.5 per cent on the previous month and 3.3 per cent year on year. The rise can be put down to increased energy costs as well as the rising prices of fresh products; energy is up 4.2 per cent on April 2008 and up 15.4 per cent on the year and food prices have increased up by 5.7 per cent year on year.

Holiday hot spot

France’s tourism minister announced that France held onto its top spot last year as the world’s number one tourist destination welcoming a total of 82 million tourists. The figures have prompted a long-term campaign to keep France at the number one spot and a new country logo has been unveiled. The designers’ brief was to incorporate the French values of liberty, authenticity and sensuality and the resulting line image depicts an open-arm welcome as well as the female form.