Ground Floor: When I mentioned that I would be throwing the euros in the purse for the trip to Spain a couple of weeks ago, I forgot to say that I was going via France - which is what made the single currency so useful.
It was just as well I had plenty with me because petrol in France is significantly more expensive than petrol at home. Finally, something on the continent which makes Ireland look cheap!
A litre of fuel was nearly 30 cent dearer there and, with recent oil price hikes, looks like it'll be higher very soon. Of course, higher fuel prices are the last thing that the under-pressure French prime minister Dominique de Villepin wants. In fact, he's called them a "heavy constraint" on the economy.
Not a day goes by when we don't hear about the trials and tribulations of the "old European" economies, particularly those of Germany and France. Ten years ago, France had the highest GDP per capita in the EU. Four years ago, it was still a strong European performer. But now, rather like the jobless recovery in the US, slow French economic growth is not creating jobs, and unemployment - at over 10 per cent - is at 10-year highs and you sense a feeling of outrage amongst the French that their country is not, anymore, one of the best performing in Europe.
De Villepin's government has called unemployment the "true French disease" and has a number of plans to increase jobs.
Unable to do away with the 35-hour working week in the face of public opposition, the government wants to simplify red tape, provide incentives for the long-term unemployed to rejoin the labour force and, more controversially, introduce a contract which extends the trial period of employees in small firms to two years.
You can't help feeling that a lot of these measures are just rearranging the deckchairs. It's like the days of the Yellow Pack jobs in Ireland. Some people have highly-protected, permanent and pensionable full-time jobs. But new entrants into the same firms are looking at lower-paid, short-term contract work. Despite the fact that UK unemployment is so much lower than in France, President Chirac believes that the UK model is "unacceptable" in France.
Notwithstanding the UK distrust of all things from Brussels, Tony Blair has a point when he says that Europe has to reform; because, despite French workers being productive, they are losing the race to be competitive.
The newcomers, in and outside Europe, are snapping at old heels and old ways can't compete in a new marketplace.
The main competition comes, as it has done for some time now, from China. Making the headlines last week was the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation's (CNOOC) bid for the American oil company, Unocal.
Unocal agreed terms for a merger with Chevron last April in a deal worth $16 billion (€13.24 billion), with a mix of equity and cash. The recent Chinese bid of $18.5 billion is all cash. CNOOC is one of China's biggest oil groups, and most analysts agree it's probably the most professionally managed.
The Chinese, despite US concerns, would like this deal to go through because their appetite for oil to fuel their booming economy continues to grow - even at these $60 plus per barrel levels, while economic commentators are beginning to wonder about the ultimate impact of prolonged high-level oil prices on the rest of the world.
Brent crude is up 38 per cent this year and that can't simply be dismissed, as has been happening since last year, as a blip. Graham Secker, an equity strategist at Morgan Stanley, is quoted as saying that people are underestimating the impact of high oil prices on earnings and on general growth in the economy.
The Chinese, rampant at the moment, might be able to take these prices on the chin, but Europe can't. The reason, of course, is that Chinese labour costs are way below anything that even the lowest- paying European company is offering, and the world wants product.
We are a consumer society, driven by the desire to acquire whatever we want at a reasonable price and right now.
We don't really care where our mobile phones or our children's toys our or designer clothes are actually made, we just want to be able to get them. If a company wants to ride on the back of consumer demand, it will have to compete with the cost structures available to Chinese companies.
Even Zara, the shop which sourced so much of its product locally in Spain, is now selling some clothes with a "made in China" label.
The CNOOC bid is only one of a number of bids which are coming from China these days and which serve notice on the rest of the world that their influence on the global economy is growing all the time.
Americans, with their cheaper energy costs, are getting anxious. So for Europeans, where costs are so much higher, the anxiety level should also be higher. Which is why I wonder whether de Villepin will really get anywhere with his grand employment plans.
Comparisons between France and China highlight the differences starkly. GDP in France is currently up 2.1 per cent on the year. The Chinese economy is showing an 8.5 per cent increase. Growth in consumer demand in France is 2.4 per cent. In China, it's up 10 per cent. Inflation in both countries is running at 1.9 per cent.
There is always a flip side. In this case, Chinese companies seeking to acquire assets outside of China will ultimately support equity markets around the world, despite domestic problems in Europe and the US. But individual governments will need to work hard to make their countries attractive to foreign investors. Somebody has to pay for all of those social benefits. The French know that.
They just don't like it.
