In a report on competitiveness and research released last year, the National Academies, the country's top science advisory body, urged the government to substantially expand spending on long-term basic research, particularly on energy.
The economy, he announced, needed nothing less than a "competitiveness shock": a huge transfer of €30 billion ($38.8 billion) to €50 billion of taxes from the payroll to broad-based forms of taxation, including VAT.Four months later, on November 5th, Mr Gallois, who once ran French railways as well as the aerospace group EADS, is due to hand in his report on competitiveness to Mr Hollande.
On November 5th Louis Gallois, a businessman, unveiled a government-commissioned report on French competitiveness, in which he wrote of an "emergency situation".
According to a report on national competitiveness by the World Economic Forum, the French rank and file has a much stronger work ethic than American, British or Dutch employees.
With landmark support from the Swedish ministry of foreign affairs and the Chinese ministry of commerce, global non-profit research organisation AccountAbility, with Chinese partner WTO Tribune, will present findings from a joint report on responsible competitiveness in China.
The starkest warning came in 2005, from the National Academies, the country's top science advisory body, which released "Rising Above the Gathering Storm," a landmark report on U.S. competitiveness.
In a recently published annual report on the competitiveness of nations by the Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Lausanne, France's ranking fell to 35th from 30th in 2004 well behind Germany (24th) and Britain (21st).So how can the bosses improve matters?
After a damning report on French competitiveness by Louis Gallois, a left-leaning industrialist, Mr Hollande announced €20 billion of tax breaks for companies employing low-wage labour, to compensate for high social charges.
In a 2007 report on global competitiveness, Bill Gates said, "When I compare our high schools to what I see when I've traveling abroad, I am terrified for our workforce of tomorrow".
Teryn previously served as Senior Advisor and Project Director at the Breakthrough Institute, a public policy think tank, where he co-authored several acclaimed reports on economic competitiveness policy, and founded the Breakthrough Fellowship Program.
But a recent report on global market competitiveness, commissioned by the International Monetary Fund, makes it clear that "insider trading is directly linked to market volatility".
