French PM on oil depletion: "the French should not be told stories"

The French Primeminister, Francois Fillon, was interviewed by France2 (National) television on the 8pm news on 21 Feb 2008. He said that the French should not be told stories. The price of oil will remain very high because oil is a depleting resource. He said that this was moreover at the heart of the ‘Grenelle de l’environnement,’ a summit on the environment between employers and unions in October 2007; that behaviour must change because nothing can compensate for the rising cost of petroleum. He said that the government was going to freeze public spending for the next five years. We have yet to hear such frankness from our governments in Australia, Canada and the USA. Another item on the French news was that beef and pork producers cannot afford to buy grain for their animals; they are running at a loss because of the rising cost of grain. Another item showed thousands of people demonstrating solidarity with the homeless in Paris, led by 28 organisations. Hard to imagine that in Australia, Canada or the USA either. Sheila Newman Energy, Population and Land-use Planning sociologist Melbourne Australia