‘There’s Bad News, Folks — I’m French’

I want to take this opportunity, in all modesty, to address a misconception. Many of you ill-informed Anglophones naively think that Jean-Marie Messier is French. Wrong. He’s not American either. Or Swiss, Argentine, Canadian or anything else. Jean-Marie Messier is, in fact, part of a unique community that extends its empire across the entire planet: the Go-Getters. These marvelous man-machines are the ones who make the consumer goods, who strut their certitude across the world stage, corseted in their dark grey suits, admired by those given to admiration. I don’t admire Monsieur Messier. I don’t hate him either. I don’t give a damn about him.

I come from a small, exotic country, France, which represents a little less than 1% of the world’s population and which has a great number of citizens with no ambition other than to have a beautiful life. I’m like that myself. The Go-Getters bore me. Competition cheeses me off, and professional success leaves me cold.

Who said life was a competition? How did we ever come around to this aberrant idea that “the right to work” would ultimately be the only human right to be universally respected? How did we come to admire only the financial success of astute and often intelligent businessmen who, like Formula One drivers, race faster and faster just to go in circles? Not that I have anything against the Go-Getters. I even have a touch of compassion for all the Jean-Maries of the world, especially the little ones puffed up with their own self-importance, the ones who take themselves for Jean-Maries yet are nothing but 11,500-a-month middle managers.

Oh, you pointless Go-Getters who devote your existence to a glorious destiny that you’ll never experience! Bless you, little soldiers, little Jean-Marie knock-offs, looking down on all those intrepid losers who refuse to spend their lives “making it.” Some lag behind on purpose; some, alas, against their wills. But thanks to your hard work, they all benefit nonetheless. Not much, mind you: a few subsidies here, a welfare payment there. And what’s wrong with that? After all, you’re doing what you like, and they are doing what they can. You are indispensable to one another. Without them, you’d have no one to show off your fabulous success to. And without you, they couldn’t while away their time watching the flowers grow, or for the unenlightened, watching TV.

Of course the Go-Getters talk about chaos, about “insufferable blockages of society, blah, blah, blah.” This is rubbish. Society works just fine. Our exotic little country is one of the richest in the world, where apparently we live better than anyone else. We are the world’s No. 1 tourist destination, we do pretty well in the aerospace industry, we produce more of our electricity by nuclear power than anybody else. I’ve even read that we’re the “premier agricultural exporting power.” Pretty impressive, eh? Our society isn’t doing so badly after all. That’s why we have to maintain this incredibly precarious and vital balance between the Do-Nothings and the Go-Getters. Peace to the Do-Nothings! Glory to the Go-Getters! Long live the social safety net! Long live unemployment! In this useless race toward an idiotic goal, let those with this strange victor’s temperament finally understand those who have no desire to run the race at all. I know that’s difficult to swallow: “I break my back, you sit around having a good time.” But I assure you, happy and dynamic Go-Getter, you’re not losing anything. You do what you do because you are what you are. You like to manufacture, to make deals, arrange mergers, be overworked, have files full of mysterious figures. It makes you happy. And you do it very well. But think about the contemplative types who wonder what’s the point of racing. Think about the village idiots, the ones who will never make it. Help them, happy Go-Getter. Help us. Help me! Don’t force us to succeed. Don’t impose your life on us. Don’t be an example. Remain a mystery. An anomaly. A Jean-Marie. Bruno Gaccio is head writer for Guignols de l’Info, a satirical nightly newscast on Canal Plus — a pay TV channel owned by Jean-Marie Messier’s Vivendi Universal