Spotlight: Selling Globalization to France

By: Katrin Bennhold

Published: March 9, 2007

This article is about a woman whose job is to sell France to the world and globalization to the French. Her name is Christine Lagarde and she is the Trade Minister for the government of France. She has a difficult job ahead of her, because in France the term globalization has become synonymous with "delocalization," or the migration of jobs abroad.

“Globalization is often seen as a threat, despite the fact that we are actually among the most open economies and benefit from it,” Lagarde said. “It's paradoxical: the openness of France alongside our fears of the world.”

She says that one of the reasons that France is skeptical of globalization is the language barrier. “We feel a bit left out, because the language of globalization is English,” she said.

She has decided to create an educational campaign to market globalization in France. She has asked a panel of 15 independent experts, ranging from chief executives to economists, to report to her this month with ideas of how to communicate more effectively about globalization in everyday life.

“If you show people the benefits of globalization they otherwise take for granted, you're halfway there,” Lagarde said. “In a world that moves constantly, we cannot afford to be rigid.”

This is an important article because it highlights the struggles that many countries are facing tying to sell the idea of globalization to its citizens. I think Lagarde is very right about language being a big barrier to acceptance of globalization. If you do not speak English, you are already at a disadvantage in the globalized world. Also, people are suspicious of globalization because they think that it means shipping jobs to other countries. They do not see all of the benefits that globalization brings to their lives already today.