[trashcanbred]

Wow... the head of the Sorbonne bad mouths the socialists. Must have been the time spent in an "Anglo-Saxon" country.

[JAWs]

"I'm very angry about the demagogy, the ignorance and the stupidity of the young and of the French..."

We, on the other hand, are very amused!

[Paladin2]

Give it up man, they're French (and VERY nuanced).

[voletti]

Is this Sorbonne a socialist haven? I mean, why is this newsworthy? of course, anybody the 'protesters' are willing to listen to telling them truth like it is, is welcome. But will the ignorant and the stupid care about what 'the Sorbonne' pulpit', such as it is?

[gotribe]

The man speaks a lot of sense. Sounds like a French intellectual of old and that's refreshing.

[SlowBoat407]

What Chirac should say:

Attention students. When you have worked for ten or twenty years, you will be qualified to comment on labor laws. Until then, shut up, go back to school, and concentrate on being useful, productive citizens. That is all.

[Fraxinus]

Wonder if he will do anything concrete about their ignorance like requiring them to take economics from a professor who actually believes in classical economics.

[jveritas]

I think you are right. Good for him.

[AmishDude]

a geography professor

Who would have guessed?

[LK44-40]

Oh la-la. Oh la-la-la-la-la-la.

This is gasoline on the fire.

[goldstategop]

The Sorbonne is a world class university. The French equivalent to the UK's Oxford and America's Harvard. I wonder if the good provost is going to be sacked for that turn of political incorrectness. The French have become a nation of snobs.

(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.")

[stm]

".....Jean-Robert Pitte said the youngsters had no dreams but believed everything was due to them as a right without having to work for it."

Ain't socialism grand?

[metmom]

Are they still at it?

[daybreakcoming]

Wonder what Dr Pitte's FReeper name is.....

[speedy]

This man is unusually clear-thinking for an academician. There will be an opening at Harvard that he seems eminently qualified to fill, if he feels like dealing with a different breed of idiot. Amazing to read this from someone who is not only an academician, but a French one at that, and in The Guardian of all places. Is "mirabile dictu" the phrase I want?

[mcvey]

The students want to reintroduce slavery--only they become masters of everyone who produces so that they can have what they want. It is slavery they want isn't it?

McVey

[OldFriend]

Amazing to hear the truth spoken by a Frenchman!

[bboop]

Wow, bold words and true.

[George - the Other]

"Today's youth don't have dreams, they have illusions. To dream is to want to accomplish something difficult that is a challenge. Instead youngsters believe they have a right to everything and if things don't go the way they want it's someone else's fault."

A breath of fresh air ...

[Right Wing Assault]

Warning, Sorbonne dude. You sound like a Freeper. The barbarians will be showing up soon with firebombs. They will NOT have the truth shoved down THEIR throats! How dare you?

[GovernmentShrinker]

They say a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged. Dr. Pitte has been mugged -- the institution which employs him, and of which he is president, is closed and sealed off due to the mob of muggers it has produced.

France is bracing itself for widespread trouble tomorrow when a national strike has been called against the controversial Contrat de Première Embauche - the First Employment Contract - which entered the statute books yesterday. A similar day of action last week ended in violent clashes between protesters and riot police.

As far as I can tell, the rioters are students and unemployed former students. How, pray tell, are they going to go on strike? Nobody cares if they go to class or not (which apparently isn't even an option that's open to them right now), and everybody except a few communist rabble-rousers would be thrilled if they'd go on strike from their current occupation, namely rioting. Dr. Pitte sure is right about these kids needing a reality check.

He added that tens of thousands of students were taking degrees in subjects with no relevance to the employment market but were then demanding jobs linked to their studies.

Seems to me that no publicly funded university should even be OFFERING "degrees in subjects with no relevance to the employment market" (and the US is certainly just as bad as the French in that department). But I'd like know just what attempts Dr. Pitte has made in his capacity as university President, to limit access to these ivory tower degree programs.