From the BBC...

French President Jacques Chirac has announced that the new youth employment law that sparked weeks of sometimes violent protests will be scrapped. He said it would be replaced by other measures to tackle youth unemployment.

Is this a victory for young people or will it leave them stranded in a high unemployment society? Does the turnaround show France to be an ungovernable mess or a responsive republican democracy?

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Romanes eunt domus

I dont know what it is about that country but it certainly does not follow the usual pattern for political life.

The students and unions are reactionary conservatives hellbent on preserving the status quo at any cost.

The Center and Center-right appear to be revolutionaries determined to drag that country into the 21st century.


It is become a basketcase, I'm afraid.

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Politics is the language of freedom

There is nothing revolutionary about introducing a law allowing employeres to fire young people without reason for 2 years, and trying to pass it off as some sort of solution to youth unemployment.

Far from being radical, it is a step towards returning to the dark old Dickensian days of citizens living their lives subject to every whim of their bosses for fear of otherwise losing their jobs.

The law was a product of scandalous negligence at best, and an insidious attack on employees at the behest of company-owners at worst.

The challenge facing the European social model is to find ways to combine a social need for job security with an economic need for labour market flexibility. This calls for delicacy and innovation, not for simply abandoning the goal of any job security altogether which is what De Villepin and Chirac were proposing.

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Ich mag Steine!

Stringjack is contributing 1-line smiley posts again - the end is nigh.

God deliver us mercy and save us all!

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Ich mag Steine!

How does this compare with Ireland? Surely Irish labour law is a bit more flexible than its French equivalent, so would you describe it as Dickensian?

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There was pleasure in paradise, but no excitement - Milan Kundera

Another weak-willed French govt lacks backbone to force the French economy to take the tough medicine needed to cut 10% unemployment. We introduced laws like this in the late 80's and unemployment soon started to fall.

Desperate times require desperate measures. Maybe it will take an Irish 1980's type of economic disease to wake them up. The symptoms are already there and amputation of the social-model is required to save the patient. Failure will lead to the disease worsening. The sick man of Europe looks set to get sicker before he gets better.

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ungovernable mess is my vote.

The economist described France as never having been 'deMarxise´ (cant apostrophe on this mac) and i think that i a fair assessment.

(post interrupted by dee four yakkin' at me)

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"I thought that I had a duty to help those that weren't as lucky as me." -- John Hume

In Irish labour law, as far as I'm aware, there's a 12 month exemption from Unfair dismissal legislation.

The French had 6 months, and De Villepin was trying to change it to 2 years for young people. It does not take 2 years to determine whether a worker is doing their job adequately or not. 6 months is more than sufficient.

I said it was a step towards Dickensian, and it is. It is not unreasonable for people to want to live their lives without fear of being fired from their jobs for no valid reason.

So long as a person does their jobs well and as outlined, and so long as their jobs don't become redundant, then they are entitled to have some small level of job security, and protection from unreasonable employers.

We all know that in practice employers still have huge amount of control over employees lives, in spite of whatever legislation exists, but at least the legislation helps avoid some cases of unfairness.

To remove unfair dismissmals legislation is a throwback to your employer effectively owning your life, as employment is a necessity, and finding alternative employment isn't always an easy option.

This isn't an issue which is of great importance to those in nice middle class office jobs, and who know exactly their labour value and have plenty of alternative employment options, and will probably aspire to spending a large portion of their lives as managers anywyas.

But it is a matter of great importance to those with limited alternative employment options, who can rely on nobody but state (and if they are lucky a trade union) to protect them from abuse, and who are likely to spend all their lives as normal workers and not managers.

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Ich mag Steine!

Would the French think that the Irish UDA (unfortunate acronym!) offers an inferior level of employee protection to that which currently exists in France? Surely in France it is legal to make employees redundant during an economic downturn?

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There was pleasure in paradise, but no excitement - Milan Kundera