Friday - March 17, 2006

Paris Is Burning, Part Deux

Guess what’s going on in France now? If you guessed riots and mayhem you would be correct. This time it’s all about a new law that was recently passed that allows employers to actually fire employees. Yep, you read that right. In The Socialist People’s Republic Of Fwance, they had to pass a law in order to give companies the right to fire workers even if the worker is a lazy bum doing a bad job.

As you might expect, the young people are enraged. How dare an employer have the right to fire one of them! Sacre Bleu! One of my favorite quotes in this story came from a young man who said, “it’s like living with a guillotine over my head.” Well, welcome to the real world, kiddo. You do a good job and you have a job. You do a bad job and you have no job. WIth 23% national unemployment in Fwance, you’d think the Fwench youth would be glad to have a job and would try their best to keep it by doing good work ... not by blackmailing the country with riots ...

FRANCE: SARKOZY BLAMES JOB REFORMS PROTESTS ON MILITANTS
_{March 17, 2006}

Paris, 17 March (AKI) - France’s interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy has spoken out against left and right wing militants he alleges are responsible for demonstrations that have turned violent this week in France over a controversial new labour law making it easier to hire and fire young people. The country’s youth unemployment stands at 23 percent - one of the highest joblessness rates in Europe - a figure that tops 50 percent in some of the high-immigration suburbs of Paris and other cities.

Sarkozy on Friday said “hooligans” and “louts” from the suburbs of the French capital, Paris, had stoked the protests over new two-year First Employment job contracts for the under-26s which employers may terminate without explanation. Unions, France’s political left and student groups oppose the contracts. “There were a few hundred delinquents who came to fight. Among them there were extreme left, extreme right, hooligans, and louts from a number of neighbourhoods,” Sarkozy told journalists. “Anarchists who really came to fight the police and gendarmes,” were among the protestors, he added.

Police restored calm in the capital on Friday morning after young demonstrators clashed with them on Paris’ Place de la Sorbonne Square in the Latin quarter, following a protest march. Demonstrators reportedly overturned cars and threw petrol bombs at police, who repelled them with tear gas and water cannons as the protests by hundreds of thousands of French students - from wealthy areas as well from poorer suburbs - grew increasingly violent.

A group of about 300 masked protesters threw missiles at police, who responded with rubber bullets as well as tear gas. Protestors also vandalised cafes and a bookshop located near the Sorbonne university was set alight. Students said 120,000 people joined the march through Paris’ Left Bank university quarter, although police stated there were 30,000.

Police said 46 officers were injured and 11 admitted to hospital in clashes in the capital and incidents in other 80 cities holding rallies. Sarkozoy said a total of 300 young people were arrested across the country including 180 in Paris, the city that saw the worst violence. As many as 257,000 people took to the streets in demonstrations that reached a peak of violence on Thursday, according to the interior ministry. Organisers of the protests put the figure as high as 500,000.

Large rallies were also held in the southern French port city of Marseilles and in Grenoble, as well as in Lyon and Strasbourg, in eastern France, Bordeaux in the southwest, in Rennes - where police also fired tear gas on protesters - and Lille in the northwest, as well as in Clermont-Ferrand, Limoges and Angers in the centre. Banners on Thursday read “Slave labour by the back door” and “If you take away our security, you’ll pay.” Police were under orders to treat troublemakers firmly but to show general restraint, the interior ministry said.

Student leaders have described the protests, which are backed by 68 percent of the population according to recent opinon polls, as a “tidal wave”. “Student’s Unions have called for a further day of protests on Saturday, when the head of the powerful CGT union, Bernard Thibault, has vowed to “step up a gear” in the campaign. “This contract is like living under a guillotine,” one 23-year-old Sorbonne political science student was quoted as saying.

Chirac Calls For Talks Over Protests
_{March 17, 2006}

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”.

“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.

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/17/2006 at 12:37 PM   
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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