Posted on 12/01/2005 10:55:35 AM PST by libertarianPA
PARIS (Reuters) - France unveiled plans on Thursday to give youngsters in poor suburbs a better education and equal opportunities after its worst urban rioting in almost 40 years, and said it would punish discrimination with swinging fines.
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, who used emergency measures to quell the unrest, is now under pressure to show he can tackle the problems behind three weeks of rioting, mostly by youths of African or Arab origin.
He said acts of discrimination would be punishable by fines of up to 25,000 euros ($29,000) , firms would consider guidelines to make job applications anonymous and the government and trade unions would try to increase diversity in the state sector.
"The crisis we have just lived through has revealed weaknesses and inadequacies and has made us aware of the progress which has to be made," Villepin told his monthly news conference.
"The urgency today is to make equality of opportunity a reality for everyone, with two levers: jobs and education."
Thousands of cars were set ablaze in the unrest, which ended in mid-November after the government invoked a colonial-era law allowing it to declare curfews. The rioters complained of high unemployment and exclusion from mainstream French society.
Villepin, who made cutting unemployment his conservative government's priority after President Jacques Chirac appointed him on May 31, hailed a fall in the jobless rate below 10 percent in recent months but said this was not enough.
He said children who faced difficulties at school would receive more support, and outlined a "contract of parental responsibility" to be drawn up with social workers and schools to ensure parents were involved in their children's education.
Villepin also said young people would be able to take up apprenticeships from the age of 14 instead of 16 and that the prestigious Sciences Po university would set up an experimental school in a poor Paris suburb that was hit by rioting.
"We need action. We have to reject state helplessness and find solutions for the problems of the French people," he said.
Many young people in the suburbs have expressed doubts that the government will carry out its promises, and the opposition Socialist Party remained skeptical.
"He is trying to play Father Christmas with a gift parcel in which there is nothing," Socialist Party spokesman Julien Dray said. "There isn't any money for the suburbs, for the people on the ground, or to change things."
Villepin also faces dissent on some policy issues from his number two in government, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.
Sarkozy, who has made no secret of his presidential ambitions and could face a battle with Villepin to lead the center-right into the 2007 presidential election, supports "positive discrimination" or affirmative action to help minorities find jobs. Villepin again ruled that out.
Chriac: The lesson here my Muslim friends is that the more damage you do, the more we'll give you.
But I'm warning you, if you blow up the Eiffel Tower, or the Louvre, or kill any French citizens, we just might hand over the whole country! So just watch it!
Somehow I doubt that fines for discrimination and education for minorities are going to nullify the French snottiness, arrogance, cultural xenophobia, and haughtiness genes.
Utes got rights and now some more coin too.
What? They're not going to reach out to their allies, or the U.N., or at least John Kerry?
Amazing isn't it? One would think that after the three weeks of destruction they just had, they'd want to make it less appealing for muslims to move to their country. Now they've done just the opposite.
What's the frog leader going to do? Give the little tykes nerf bats instead of Louisville sluggers?
Put a fork in them, they are done.
Man, what abject cowardice.
All "new" employment applications must now read "Are you a protected person ? If yes do not fill in the rest of the application your job / education will be fully paid and waiting for you. All others fill out the application and we will get back with you after taking care of the protected people.
That's nice, but we all know there is no racism in France. It's a socialist paradise.
Did the article call Vilipin conservative??? What are they comparing him too?
The plan is to RAISE taxes and welfare payments.
Huh ? what do seek to learn other than the Koran ????
Re-lo 'em to the Bikini atoll...& do a "test"
How about midnight basketball leagues?
Some clever muslims must have been behind this too. This act of "we're just mad french people, not muslims" worked a charm giving the gov. a "dignified" surrender exit easy "solution".
There is nothing worse than an educated aggravated arrogant musslims. accademia is arrogant enough as it is... this is what gor them the Algeria war: educated and indochina war trained muslims.
You would do a lot better if you would round up the muslum population and send them back where they came from. They are outbreeding you, and within a few years(probably sooner than later), all the French women will have to get measured for a burka.
You ain't gonna like living in 6th century dirt....and your women for damn sure won't like living mutilated, ignorant and in a dirty tent.
*cough*muslim brotherhood*cough*
Good point. I was watching a news report once - the reporter was doing a story on muslims living in England who were protesting the Iraq war. Their main beef was that they didn't want Democracy injected into mid-East culture. One of the protestors stated, "Islam is perfect. Why would we need democracy?"
So, the fact that he is living in England leads me to believe that he didn't move there for the freedom of democracy, but as an ongoing plan on the part of Muslims to expand their territory. Why the Europeans don't see this is beyond me.
Can't we all just get along?
Great....that'll mean alot to the Muslims.
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