I was rather hoping the new French president might appoint a Brit to his cabinet. It is true that François Fillon, his prime minister, has a Welsh-born wife, speaks English, drinks tea and has even spent several days as a fly-on-the-wall observer in Downing Street to absorb Anglo-Saxon attitudes.

But why accept imitations?

Sarko has appointed a socialist as his foreign minister. Why not a Brit in charge of, say, economic competitiveness?

I’m sure there are plenty of expats here who would be up for the job. I would volunteer myself, although there are others with far more direct and bruising experience of the French paradox. On the one hand, this is a country that declares itself a beacon of competitiveness and seeks to attract foreign investment; on the other, its officials pursue ruthless vendettas against anyone who gets off their bum.

Luxury living arrives for the business masters of Paris

BACKGROUND

• French mistress: Watch out for the British cowboys

• French Mistress: They’re French, therefore they think

• French mistress: Love it or leave it

Tracy McVeigh, for example, who runs the Hôtel de Vigniamont in Pézenas, near Montpellier, would love the job of rethinking France’s policy towards small-business owners.

McVeigh and her husband, Rob, bought a run-down building in the centre of town in 2003 and converted it into a boutique hotel. Four years later, the business is a success, but McVeigh feels the government is doing everything it can to thwart them.

“It feels as if we’re being punished for doing well,” she tells me. “Hardly a day goes by without us receiving yet another piece of bureaucratic paperwork that needs either our attention, our accountant’s attention or, more often than not, another cheque to the Sécu [social security authority]. Our social charges have gone up by 65% in the past year and, of course, our tax bill has increased as well.”

So, although the couple have seen a 40% increase in business, they will actually be worse off by the end of the season than they were when they were making less money. “It is not exactly an incentive,” says McVeigh. “Sarkozy needs to provide better tax breaks and reduce social charges for small-business owners to start up an enterprise.”

Small-business owners in France generally have to pay about 40% of their gross income to the French social administrative departments, mainly the URSSAF, which controls healthcare, pensions and welfare benefits. Not surprising, then, that they find survival tricky. Two-thirds of new businesses fail during the first three years.

“Once the tax breaks given in the first two years cease to apply, life becomes impossible,” says Craig Nunn, who runs a small building company near Limoges. “Most of the people who were on the same course as me at the chamber of commerce went bust during their third year in business.”

Brits living in France have other gripes, too. Were Lauren McMullen, a sports marketing consultant, to get a job in the cabinet, she would make Sarkozy hold to the pledge, made during his campaign, to abolish inheritance tax.

McMullen and her boyfriend, Michael Groom, both in their fifties, are selling their fourbed farmhouse in southwest France, but they might rethink if inheritance tax is abolished. “France is already attractive,” she says. “Without inheritance tax, it would be irresistible. For our age group, this tax is a preoccupation. By now, we should be able to relax and enjoy life; instead, we are worrying about passing assets to our children early, to avoid 40% tax, and, if we do, whether we have enough left to live on. I know we’re not alone in this.”

The concerns of most expats are far more mundane. My friend Caroline says that first, she would pass a law to make it illegal to keep dogs locked up for hours on end, so they bark incessantly. She lives in a village near a man who keeps his two hunting dogs tied up nearly all day.

“He takes them out for an hour, but basically, the rest of the time, the poor animals are cooped up,” she says. “They bark incessantly, mainly at night or early in the morning. I’ve lost count of the number of times they’ve woken us up. I lie there listening to them at 2am, and wonder what sort of person doesn’t try to shut their dogs up at that time of night.”

Obviously, as soon as Sarko tries to implement any of the changes that will deregulate the labour market, there will be strikes. Annoyingly, these always seem to happen the one day I am on a TGV or at the airport, trying to get somewhere. My suggestion to Sarko is to employ Margaret Thatcher as a consultant on how to deal with irritating strikers. This will scare the hell out of the unions and he can threaten them by saying that, if they don’t agree to negotiations, he’ll make her deputy prime minister.

He could recruit 10,000 or so retired Brits to drive the buses and trains on national strike days, as well as retired doctors to see to patients, teachers to look after the children, and so on. We have lived here for almost seven years and have had about 10 strike days at our children’s school. Things have been quiet during the winter, but I suspect now summer has arrived, they will start up again.

While we’re on the subject of schools, were I to be offered a place in the Sarkozy cabinet, I would make school uniforms obligatory across the country, for all ages. They would be modelled on the classic Chanel tailleur: cream and black, with little skirts and jackets for the girls, trousers or shorts and cotton jumpers for the boys.

Sarko’s job will not be easy.

As well as coping with the restive French, who are unlikely to fall in line with the outrageous suggestion that they work more than 35 hours a week, he will face resistance from the many Brits who fled the British Isles to escape Thatcher. These people, most of whom have gone completely native, should be informed, rather like those Japanese who think that the second world war is still on, that Thatcher is no longer in power.

However, should they wish to remain in France, they must swear allegiance to the concept of economic reform and the free market, or they will be deported. The reason? As a French admiral remarked when asked why the English court-martialed and shot Admiral Byng: “

Pour encourager les autres.”

helena@sunday-times.co.uk, www.helenafrithpowell.com, www.hoteldevigniamont.com

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