The one who is thinking globally, or says he is, in this case is Chirac. The ones acting locally are the demonstrators:
Demonstrators opposed to a new jobs law clashed with police in downtown Paris on Tuesday, throwing stones and debris as they dodged tear gas canisters. Several people were seen being carried away by authorities.A nationwide strike shut down the Eiffel Tower and snarled air and rail travel for the second time in a week Tuesday while students barricaded themselves in schools to protest a jobs measure that has riven the country and put the government in crisis mode.
More here.
Roger:
Chirac, as usual, tried to go both ways and achieved nothing. His speech supported DV’s new employment bill and yet he also said that there would be changes. Thus he chickened out and made no one happy. The left said screw you, the demonstrations will continue and he gave conditional support to DV, thus cutting him off at the knee’s. I feel no pity for DV, if the situation was reversed he would do the same to Chirac. And this is why Chirac’s time as leader of France will be forgotten at best, ridiculed as flacid and corrupt in the worst case scenario. No doubt he will soon make a nice income on the Universirty lecture circuit telling Americans how stupid they are.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,,1745582,00.html
The Guardian
The president of the world-renowned Sorbonne University has branded French students protesting about the country’s new employment law “ignorant
and stupid”.
Reacting to protests over the law, which makes it easier for employers to fire, and therefore presumably more willing to hire, young workers, 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.
“I’m very angry about the demagogy, the ignorance and the stupidity of the young and of the French,” said Dr Pitte, 56, a geography professor who has taught at Oxford and Cambridge and holds the Legion d’honneur.
“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.”
Dr Pitte, whose comments were published in the respected weekly news magazine Le Point, blamed “irresponsible” public debate for stoking the violence.
“They say: Oh, these poor students! Of course they have a right to an open-ended work contract! It’s absurd,” he told Le Point. “Who is going to tell these youngsters the truth? Get real.”
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.
“It’s true that someone in England who leaves Oxford with a degree in Chinese can work in marketing, but they learn their job as they go along and must prove themselves.
“I know people will say I’m a horrible reactionary but I’m very angry about the ignorance and the stupidity not just of youngsters but of the
French because we have the youth we deserve.“
…Dr. Pitte, 56
I bet you his job is secure. And has he offered to ease the employment crisis by taking a pay cut? Doubt it!
Reform is necessary, but Dr. Pitte and others of his generation are asking their children to make all the sacrifices while they sacrifice absolutely nothing.
Whatever happened to leadership from the top down?
Joe Schmoe:
We have gone back and forth on this before but the youth of France are missing the big picture. They are fighting for a system that can’t be sustained and the longer it goes on the bigger bill they will have to pay in the future. Every year that the cradle to grave benifits of the French system continues the worse it will get. The current system has produced a 20 to 24 per cent youth unemployment rate. Fair or not, the current system leads employers not to hire the youth. because there is no flexibility in hiring and firing and non-governmental hiring of the youth is avoided. Even in a heavly regulated system, full of rights and guarantees, the French youth are the prime victims now, and when the demographic ratio of retired v workers hits it will get worse and it will become harder to change. The leaders of the left and the unions that are leading the youth have their pensions and futures firmly secured. The youth have no present and no future. They should be on the ramparts leading the fight to get rid of the system that is screwing them now and will screw them harder in the future. Fighting to preserve the current system is slow generational suicide. It is not about fairness, it is about counting numbers and reality.
Mr. Schmoe demonstrates, alas, that the French educational system is hardly unique in its ability to produce widespread economic illiteracy.
It is a simple question of fairness.
Suppose Nancy Pelosi called for a military draft, but wanted to exempt her San Francisco constituents from the pool of eligible draftees. You’d protest that, becuase it is manifestly unfair.
In France, Chirac is calling for modifications in the employment system. The modifications are necessary, no one denies that, certainly not me. But he’s requiring only one segment of society to bear the burden. This is unfair.
Everyone should shoulder a portion of the burden, young and old alike.
As my son says to “She Who Must Be Obeyed” – “Mom, get the Thorazene, Dad’s mumbling again!”
Joe, surely you see the wisdom in this. You write well, sound like you are fairly well educated, have a great last name, etc.
Joe Schmoe, you have a point, but it is a very small one, and it ultimately fails on its own terms.
Fairness? We know you fail to understand the economics; you fail to understand the politics too. Democracy, of which France is one, is ultimately governed by popular will expressed through the vote. No one votes like the old, especially those dependent upon government pensions (or soon to be, like our Dr. Pitte, 56). So yes, while it might be “fairer” for everyone in France to be an at-will employee, it isn’t politically feasible. Especially in France where, like anywhere else, Socialism makes people weak, stupid and poor. So while it would be fairer for the older workers and citizens to shoulder some of the burden of weaning from Socialism, it just ain’t gonna happen. They’re too weak, too scared and too poor to sacrifice for the program. Hell, it’s not just the French either – look at all the bedwetting and squealing like stuck pigs we heard about extraordinary modest reforms proposed to Social Security in our own country. Without even addressing the seriously misguided fear-mongering frenzy whipped up by the Democrats (and the unions in France), the only hope for these programs fostering dependency is to wean the young, as they are the best equipped to adapt to changes. That might offend your ever-so-sensitive sense of fairness, but politically, it is all that is possible – in a democratic society. So demand “shared sacrifices” all you want – and all you do is seal the crypt to reform.
Joe, I have to disagree with you. No one should expect any sort of job security short of hard work and results.
The way you keep a job is by completing your work well and on time. Im not accusing you of being lazy or anyting like that, but these French “youths” seem oblivious to the link between hard work and success, and the equally important link between a flexible job market and flexible, competitive, succesful economies.
Now, I’m no economist, but it seems like the French find the ailment unacceptable AND the medicine equally unacceptable.
How would the French government put the burder on the entire population, anyway?
The unemployed are still unemployed, with perhaps a better chance of getting hired with the new law in effect.
The already-employed are put on notice to work hard and not to dick round.
Sounds like a win-win for France and a lose-lose for lazy layabouts who expect job security simply because they graduated.
I agree that the 0lder folks should also have no right to this serious job security they have in France, but I think we all know that the 30+ crowd is not about to make or break any 21st century global economy. They can continue to be layabouts and under-producers, but if this young generation and generations to come are not weened off of the current employment protection system, then France is in serious trouble.
It’s a shame Chirac and Villepin have to take a beating to do the right thing. It’s almost, hmmmmmmm…..IRONIC!
Joe:
You would have a fantastic argument if the current system was good for the French youth but it is not. They don’t get hired. They get their education, they get their health care, they don’t get to work. And since the system is going to face a serious shortfall the young will be better off the sooner they learn the real world of perform well, get rewarded, perform poorly, get canned. In the long run they will be able to perform better and change the system. Most employers don’t like firing because of the retraining cost and overtime they often have to pay getting the new hire up to speed.Even if some employer hire a young French kid and fire him 6 months later that is better then 6 months on the dole.Job expierence. Yes, there are some power hungry jerks who abuse the system but they are often weeded out by the market. You keep ignoring the fact that the youth are not benifiting from the system and it will just get worse. It is not fair!, fight so we can continue to get screwed.
As my Dad used to say…”Who said life is fair?”
You can work hard and responsibly AND STILL FAIL!
How many small businesses fall be the way side each year? When a company goes under everyone’s out of a job regardless of how hard they worked.
Boo Hoo, that’s life, suck it up and get on with it! The young have it much easier in this regard. It’s a lot easier to change your life and your career at 26 then it is at 56.
Whining…the major product of Socialism.
Can you imagine a French “The Apprentice”? Watch ‘youths’ burn cars and pout, all to earn some dead end government sinecure at the end.