French Government Announces New Plan: Discuss Problem Until It Becomes Elegant


PARIS — Facing mounting pressure over economic concerns, the French government has unveiled a bold new strategy: turning every crisis into a philosophical conversation.


When a Crisis Is Just a Misunderstood Aesthetic Experience


The initiative, titled "Dialogue Until Resolution Feels Optional," involves a multi-phase approach: first, identify the issue; second, redefine the issue as a cultural nuance; third, break for lunch. Phase four, if required, involves commissioning a 200-page report explaining why the issue is actually quite beautiful when viewed from the correct angle, preferably while smoking.

Officials insist the method has historical precedent. "We have been solving problems this way for centuries," said one minister, who asked to remain anonymous on the grounds that being named might constitute a commitment. "Eventually, either the problem goes away or we write a book about it." France has published approximately 40,000 books since 1950. Economists are reviewing the correlation.

France's civil service employs over 5.7 million public sector workers — the largest proportional bureaucracy in Western Europe — which means there are statistically more people available to discuss the problem than to fix it, a ratio officials describe as "philosophically optimal."


The Poll Numbers Are Complicated, Which Is Also the Plan

A recent poll found that 82% of Parisians support the plan, though 64% admitted they were unclear what the plan actually is. A further 11% said they supported it specifically because it required nothing of them. The remaining 7% were still at lunch.

One anonymous staffer described the process candidly: "We don't fix things. We elevate them. Then we smoke." The staffer paused, exhaled, and added: "Sometimes we elevate the smoke."

The opposition has called the strategy "a masterpiece of elegant inaction," which the government immediately adopted as a slogan.


The Cheese Committee Weighs In


The plan has been endorsed by the French Office of Cultural Continuity, which noted that France has survived the Black Plague, two world wars, and the invention of the croissant sandwich without abandoning its commitment to thoughtful conversation. "The nation has never panicked," said one cultural advisor. "We have, on occasion, strongly felt things. But panicking is very American."

A separate government body, the Commission on Productive Ambiguity, was formed to oversee the initiative. It has held four meetings, produced seventeen position papers, and unanimously agreed that the fifth meeting should be scheduled after everyone has had a proper holiday. Critics point out that this is itself a demonstration of the policy, which supporters say proves it works.

The European Central Bank has declined to comment. Analysts say this is because no one has explained the plan in a way that makes its absence of action distinguishable from its presence of action, which the government considers a victory.

"Why panic?" asked a government advisor, lighting a cigarette with the serenity of a man who has personally reframed three recessions as artistic statements. "We have cigarettes." For further dispatches from the front lines of French institutional absurdism, Paris Fou maintains a running file.

Bohiney.com is a satirical publication. This article was produced through a human collaboration between an economist who switched to pottery and a former policy analyst who now raises goats. France's government is a real institution with real policies, many of which are genuinely difficult to distinguish from this article. The 200-page reports are also real. They are, by most accounts, beautifully written.

Auf Wiedersehen, amigo! https://bohiney.com/french-government-announces-new-plan/