Regards, Ivan
Posted on 04/02/2006 5:53:24 AM PDT by MadIvan
FRANCE is heading for even greater unrest after furious trade union and student leaders vowed to intensify their protests yesterday, following president Jacques Chirac's refusal to withdraw his government's youth labour law.
Despite Chirac's gamble in going on TV to win a compromise and end image-damaging riots in Paris, union and student leaders stayed firm in their intention to hold another mass protest on Tuesday, when more than two million demonstrators are expected to take to the streets.
Last week, Chirac faced what was undoubtedly one of the most critical decisions of his long political career.
After France's top constitutional body, the Constitutional Council, ruled on Thursday that the First Employment Contract (CPE) was legal, he was faced with a dilemma, the outcome of which will not only have considerable impact on how he is portrayed in the history books, but also has the potential to determine the future of the French right in next year's elections.
Should he defy France's powerful trade unions and sign his government's youth job law - a deeply unpopular bill which has already triggered a general strike, closed or disrupted most of the country's universities and hundreds of lycées and brought millions on to the streets in increasingly violent protests?
Or should he do as he has done in the past - yield to the pressure from the street and opt for an embarrassing climb- down which would restore peace?
The president's decision to try to please everyone - by compromising between saving his loyal lieutenant and chosen successor, prime minister Dominique de Villepin, who wanted the law applied promptly and in full, and millions of protesters, who are demanding it be scrapped before any compromise can be discussed - has ended up pleasing no one. It now threatens to plunge him and his centre-right government into an even greater crisis, overshadowing his last months in power and potentially sinking the presidential ambitions of his protégé.
Far from quelling the revolt against his government's labour reforms, Chirac's televised announcement on Friday night that he was pushing ahead with the CPE, has drawn the wrath of trade union and student leaders and the socialist-led opposition.
It has set the stage for yet more strikes and marches, despite his promised amendments to two of the law's most controversial clauses. Chirac's pledge to reduce the trial period from two years to one, and to give young recruits the right to know why they had been fired, was promptly rejected by the anti-CPE camp.
"This is not going to calm things," said Socialist party leader Francois Hollande, adding that there was now "much to fear".
Bruno Julliard, the leader of UNEF, the main student union, said: "Perhaps he has a hearing problem. All he proposed was what we have heard for weeks. He has listened to nothing and we are headed for trouble."
De Villepin, the architect and champion of the CPE, argues it is an essential measure to combat youth unemployment because it gives employers the flexibility to fire incompetent workers without the usual repercussions of France's draconian labour laws, thus encouraging them to take a chance on inexperienced youngsters.
The CPE has become a focus for the country's considerable discontent with its conservative government. Anger over the law has united students, secondary school pupils, unions and the socialist-led opposition.
They all fear it will erode France's labour laws and create a generation of "throw-away workers". When students staged a sit-in at the Sorbonne University, in Paris, commentators immediately began comparing the protest to the revolt of May 1968, of which the occupation of the Sorbonne is the most potent symbol.
In fact, the French youths who are on the streets complaining about the new employment law have very little in common with their parents' and grand-parents' generation.
In 1968, the protests were about rejecting mainstream society. The anger over the CPE springs from the sentiment that young people are being excluded from the world of steady work, and is fuelled by fear over job stability in a country where unemployment is endemic among the 15 to 24 age group.
The official unemployment figures show around 23% do not have a job - more than double the national average - but experts say this can rise as high as 50% in some of the deprived suburbs, which were the focus for last year's rioting.
The goal of the majority of young French people today is to secure the sort of permanent, highly protected job contracts that many of their parents - the generation of 1968 - enjoy.
For many young people who feel trapped on an endless treadmill of dreary short-term jobs, interspersed with spells of unemployment, this seems like an increasingly unobtainable dream. For them, the CPE represents a betrayal of France's cherished welfare state and the death knell for steady work.
So far, Chirac has backed de Villepin - an appointee with no electoral experience, who represents his last hope of countering the inexorable rise of his detested arch rival, the fiercely ambitious interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy.
But de Villepin has now led Chirac into a political crisis which has seen Chirac's ratings plunge to their lowest level as he enters his last year in office.
In the meantime, Sarkozy has been obliged to perform a delicate balancing act between officially supporting the government and showing voters he would have handled things differently if given the chance.
On Friday, officially, he decided to tow the government line, congratulating Chirac on his "wise decision". But, privately, aides said Sarkozy was "appalled" by the president's speech.
Political analysts said last week that a ruling of illegality by the Constitutional Council would have provided de Villepin and Chirac with the easiest way out of the crisis.
Following the council's decision to the contrary, and the protesters' angry rejection of Chirac's proposals, it is hard to see how the government can find a rapid way to end the unrest.
Regards, Ivan
Ping!
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
Any so called leader that takes the time to consider future history books, ain't worth spit.
Are you kidding me? France has ridiculously high unemployment and for good reason, their obscene labor laws. Would you hire anyone you know you can not fire? In oder to fire someone in France it takes months and months of warnings, then you must pay three years of serverence pay even if they only worked a week, then you must go to court to prove the firing was justifiable which many times the court rules it is not. Their laws are whack.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
A young person who hasn't learned to work by the age of 25 is worthless.
Employment contracts are not 'social contracts', they are contracts between a private employer and its workers. These laws have no place in a free society, they only have place in a extremely communistic socieity.
No, I can enjoy (shame on me) watching Chirac squirm, but he's dfinetily doing the right thing for his countries economic quagmire.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
Perhaps Mssr. Chirac should try the seldom used option of le big stick upside the sides of le swarthy protestors' heads.
LOL.
Pitiful reporter and proofreader. Not to mention the blatant bias throughout the entire article.
The poor Frogs are totally owned.
They would be better off on drugs than on socialism.
Any compromise would still leave Muslim immigrants scrambling for the lowest paying jobs, and you know what they say about the devil and idle hands. France is in big trouble.
France's angry, protesting white youth don't give a fig about Muslim job prospects. It's all about their right to a featherbed existence. Socialism is tricky, you need workers at the bottom to support everybody else. It's a pyramid scheme.
reap what you sow
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