An electoral campaign frequently consists for the candidates in proclaiming that all what has been done for thirty and even forty years is a failure after another one. A candidate went even to pretend that one of the previous presidents had put the French economy into the worst situation. Three recent or forecast events and devoted to examples of major France successes show to which point all these declarations are without any basis and so are misleading.

Last year, in September was celebrated the 40th anniversary of the putting into operation of the Paris-Lyon High-Speed train line. That putting into operation was only related to two-third of the track because a Prime minister had, in1979, stopped its achievement and forbidden to make any study about new lines. The president of the Republic, during the inauguration in 1981, allowed SNCF to achieving it and asked it in addition, to proceed to the studies in order to build new tracks in direction of France Western regions, which were named then, the Atlantic High-Speed Train. So was launched one of the largest investment program in transportation infrastructures France had known. Lines toward West were extended until Britanny and later until Bordeaux. Lyon loop-line was realized to serve its new airport, the Alpes and later the Rhone Valley.

A connexion, in Massy-Palaiseau city, between the Western and the South-Eastern lines allowed to building a network which after that gained an European dimension. The Northern High-Speed Train first served Lille and, very quickly after, Brussels and Amsterdam. An extension allowed to reaching Cologne. Long negociations with England lead in1986 to the signature of the Canterbury Treaty and to the construction of the fixed link accross the Channel. After the examination of the different projects, the tunnel solution was adopted and so the construction of a line between Paris and London was decided. At last, France Eastern regions were added to the network with the line serving Strasbourg.

France, then, has at its disposal after thirty years of investments, the most modern and efficient rail network in Europe. contributing to the regional development and to the served cities prosperity. The first argument for saling a property has become its proximity with a station where the High-speed train makes a stop. But as frequently in France, when something works very well, it becomes the purpose of critics. As the Barre government did it in 1979, the president elected in 2017, will worry about the « all-High-Speed Train policy » and will announce the stoppage of studies about new lines in order to give the priority to modernize the local networks. Fortunately, that turnaround will be short-lived. During the ceremony of the 40th anniversary of the inauguration of the Paris-Lyon High-Speed Train, he has encouraged SNCF to launch new projects. Financing for the prolongation of the South-Western lines in direction of Toulouse and Dax have just been collected and the project of an extension of the line which serves Marseille until Nice is progressing.

France is going on with its strategy started in the Eighties which has known an exceptional popular success with millions of travellers to go into vacations, to visit their families or to have professional trips. For two years it has also allowed to developping at home working. That policy has contributed to reduce CO2 emissions and is included in the energy transition project through the reduction of short distance air travels. It remains to be found a new trip mode by train for merchandises.

Is celebrated this month a quite different event but which is also revealing the essential choices made during the Eighties, the 30th anniversary of the opening of Disneyland Paris. The project was then known under the Eurodisney name. The American company in 1985 had chosen France and submitted its project to the government to get the authorization. It was not unanimously supported. The Minister of Culture saw there a promotion of entertainment tools which were setting aside national values. Despite these reservations, the agreement was given. A RER line was even built to serving the chosen site, located near Marne-la-Vallée, in the South-East of Paris and the line was inaugurated in the same time than the opening of the attraction park in 1992.

Thirty years later, the result is spectacular. Disneyland Paris has become the first touristic destination in Europe which welcomed every year, before the sanitary crisis, until 15 millions visitors with half of them coming from foreign countries. More than 15 000 jobs have been created and the site is the largest employer of the Seine-et-Marne department. The park is still investing to offer new attractions, which has represented since its opening, more than 9 billion euros.

At last, at the beginning of this year, has been celebrated, but with a certain discretion, the 20th anniversary of the euro. It is in fact on 2002 January 1st that all the payments tools have been converted and this new currency has imposed itself in Europe, in all the major State-Members, with the exception of the United Kingdom. But that achievement was the outcome of a long process whose initiator and the permanent supporter was France and which started  in March 1983. Against all the accepted ideas, the turnaround was then more an « European turnaround » than the « rigor turnaround », a set of measures criticized today because it generated an economic policy clumsy evolution based on a wrong analysis of the reasons of the foreign trade deficit.

The couragous choice to remain inside the Europan Monetary System, whatever were the political consequences on the short and the long term, allowed to giving to Jacques Delors the mission to prepare the Unique Act in 1986 and then the unique market, which were determining steps of the European construction, until the referendum which approved the creation of the euro. In the same time, France had succeeded in convincing Germany, during the discussions which had lead to the reunification. If the road which lead to the euro was sometimes bumpy, as during the violent Sterling crisis at the beginning of the Nineties, its putting into operation, was an exceptional technical success. The 2012 crisis, which could have been qualified as a « crisis of youth », has been surmounted thanks to the powers granted to the European Central Bank and to its president resolution.

Despite all the critics the euro has been the purpose, we have had the possibility to assess during the sanitary crisis the benefits it brought to France, without which it would have been impossible, except if we have added to the sanitary crisis a financial one, to adopt the measures providing an economic support to enterprises and to household which has allowed to avoiding a failures wave and a huge increase of unemployment. The many political leaders who had made the euro their target and the explication of the poor economic results in the past are today preventing themselves from taking again these critics and no more official political leader proposes to return to the Franc. So the France untiring action in favor of the European construction since 1983 has been a success which is necessary to hail, all the more that international tensions did not stop, quite the opposite, with the war between Russia and Ukraine, and that they will have, here also, major economic and financial consequences the existence of Europe will help to surmount.

The strength of a nation, it is to take the good decisions at the right time. We have just given three examples in quite different areas. So we have to admit it and put it in front in order then to taking profit of them and to achieving new successes.