Oh, Those Crazy French

Surprise, surprise. The French welfare state is collapshing. Their solution? Encourage more women who can afford to pay high taxes to have babies.

Middle-class French women will be offered cash incentives to have a third child amid growing concerns that professional couples are having too few children. Although France's fertility rate of 1.9 for each couple is relatively high among European countries, family lobbyists are dismayed by a fall in the number of babies born to
better-educated women.

France's National Union of Family Associations, which is known by its French acronym UNAF and is playing a key role in shaping policy, said the figure should be set at up to $1,250 a month for women with three children, double the present maximum, and should be set according to the woman's salary.