The French again...

[clawhammer]

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/news..._UK-FRANCE.xml

PARIS (Reuters) - French President Jacques Chirac called for swift talks on Friday between the government and unions over a youth employment law after Paris protests against the measure ended in violence and arrests.

Ministers tried to stem growing opposition to the new contract with a conciliatory tone, one saying no worker could be laid off without justification under the law, despite critics who say it will create a generation of "disposable workers".

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who took a hard line with suburban rioters last year, said most students had protested peacefully and blamed the violence on a small group of "hooligans" looking for a fight.

The government told prosecutors to deal firmly with those involved in clashes that left a handful of Paris shop fronts and cafes smashed and 92 people injured. Police used teargas and water cannon to quell the violence and of 187 people detained, 71 were still in custody on Friday.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has stoutly defended his First Job Contract despite mounting opposition that has sunk his approval ratings, rattled the ruling UMP party and threatened his thinly-veiled ambition to run for president in 2007 elections.

"You know the government is ready for dialogue and I hope this will start as quickly as possible," Chirac said at an awards ceremony at his official Elysee Palace residence.

Unions and student groups are planning further action on Saturday and hope to step up pressure on Villepin by bringing more than a million people onto the streets, topping the size of March 7 rallies.

"This demonstration must take place calmly and respect everyone," Chirac said of the protest due in central Paris.

Unions and student groups have tied any talks to withdrawal of the law, which is opposed by 68 percent of French people according to an opinion poll published in Friday's Le Parisien newspaper. That is a rise of 13 percentage points in a week.

Student leaders said 300,000-600,000 university and high school students took part in Thursday's action and vowed to press on. Officials put the number at 247,500 nationwide.

Around two-thirds of France's 84 universities were disrupted by protests on Friday, down from three-quarters, the first time the number had fallen since the start of the protest movement.

CONCILIATORY TONE

Villepin says the CPE will help young people in poor suburbs that were affected by youth riots last fall, to find jobs. It allows companies to take on workers for a two-year trial period before offering them a permanent job.

But some youngsters in those suburbs say they do not like the sound of the plan.

"I am totally against it. You have a contract for 2 years and can be fired any time," said unemployed Jerome Desprol, 24, from Aulnay-Sous-Bois, a northeastern Paris suburb.

Government ministers on Friday redoubled their efforts to strike a conciliatory tone and find a way out of the sharpest crisis to hit Villepin's 10-month-old government.

"I don't doubt for a single moment that we are capable ... of taking steps to find a solution," Labour Minister Jean-Louis Borloo said on France 2 television.

While government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope expressed indignation over the disturbances, Sarkozy distinguished between the peaceful majority of demonstrators and a few troublemakers.

"There were a few hundred delinquents who came spoiling for a fight. Among them were the far left, the far right, hooligans, louts from a certain number of neighbourhoods," he said.

The protests have reinvigorated the opposition Socialists, who have struggled to recover from defeat in 2002 elections.

"I really urge the government to withdraw this bad project before there is a serious accident," Laurent Fabius, a former prime minister who hopes to run in
2007, told LCI television.









WTF? They're rioting because they don't want jobs? What kind of retards are they? They want to live the rest of their lives in unemployment?

[YogsVR4]

Its not that they don't want to work. Its that they don't want their employer to be able to fire them. Sort of like immediate tenure.

[TexasF355F1]

Hmmm....why do I have a feeling this is where America is heading b/c of all the handouts we give to slackers.

[G-man422]

^ so true.

[TerminalVelocity]

I can see that being a problem.

[-Davo]

Just so you know, Australia is going through an extremely similar deal.

Our Industrial Relations law changes are being brought into work tomorrow, March the 27th. The day Australia became a 3rd world country, GG Howard. You win.

[Stefanel1]

The problem is more complicated. This law, the CPE (Contrat Première Embauche which means Contact for the First Job) concerns young people under 26 years old. Every time, when a government in France tried to do a reform not too popular for the young people, often students, they failed with people in strike... with the help of unions. And now, Dominique de Villepin who made this law is politically dead, also because of the Clearstream's affair. The problem is that he didn't explain the project, he hasn't made a debate between students, unions and companies.
There are reforms to make in France about the labour, people are often over protected....when they have a job ! and economically, that's not the good solution, even if workers cannot become marchandise of course. But too much protection kills the protection. The unemplyment is high in France with 10% (8% is the average in Europe). And particularly for the youngs. That's why this law was thinked. The problem is that, if there is more or less 25% of the youngs unemployed, it differs a lot from their studies. People who have some diploms in finance, economy, health, etc. don't have problems to find a job and to progress in the company. But we have a real problem which is all the young people who have been forgotten from our society, and who often stopped their study at 16 years old (and often before in their mind). And these people, without making easy shortcuts, were often the same as for the crisis of the suburbs at the end of 2005. They often don't have any future and don't know what they'll do.
But, and that was one of the errors in this law, the CPE was made for all the youngs under 26 y-o. And that wasn't necessary, overall knowing that a crisis could have been created.
And finally, the fear of the flexibility exists for some people. Overall for people who didn't make studies, or made studies without real openings. So these people, obviously, prefer to have a job sure and without a risk to be fired if they are not good.
But that's a big subject and the aspects of the problem are multiples. But there is though a reality that us, French have to understand, we are not any more in the "village gaulois" and have to adapt ourselves to the globalization... and we do it for a big part of the population, but there are some people who continue to think that we can continue with some vantages which cost a lot and won't be able to continue.