"We must block the country for several days"

Last night I had a long drive home and listened to Radio France Info for more than two hours just after Jacques Chirac gave his speech. He said that he "promulgates the law" but asks for it not to be applied, and asks for two of its crucial provisions to be changed. The President's response is confusing and makes nobody happy.

During the two hours I was listening, Radio France Info, which is a publicly owned radio station, had interviews one after another. I heard the voices of high-school student leaders, university student leaders, union heads, the editor of Humanité (the Communist newspaper), Socialist party leaders, Communist party delegates, all against the CPE, of course. I kept expecting that in the interest of at least looking fair, they would interview just one small-business owner, jeune from the suburbs, or conservative party delegate-- but no. They did briefly quote, but not interview, the head of the MEDEF (big-employers' group) and Nicolas Sarkozy. I was listening for two hours to non-stop 100% anti-CPE views. La pensée unique. Anyone would think, to listen to the talk, that the CPE had been forced upon France by outer-space aliens trying to bring France's youth to its knees, instead of voted in the National Assembly by a legal majority of elected representatives trying to solve the unemployment problem of youth in the ghettos.

The anti-CPE people were very angry and all talked about the big general strike Tuesday, 4th April. Now that the last legal recourse against the law has fallen, all they can do is go on striking. There was a spontaneous big night-time demonstration last night here in Paris.

"What will you do now?" asked a sympathetic Radio France Info interviewer of one union leader.

"J'appelle à un blocage total du pays," said the man. "Il faut bloquer le pays pendant plusieurs jours."

"I call for a total blockage of the country. We have to block the country for several days."

So stock up on your supplies, people.

Comments

[L'Amerloque]

Hi Sedulia !

In Amerloque's view, France-Inter and its little sister/brother France-Info are simply not interested in presenting balanced viewepoints. Their agendas are elsewhere, and they make no pretense of "objectivity".

In the 1960s and 1970s, though, France-Inter was far more objective - and informative - than it is today. Depuis mai, 1981, c'est n'importe quoi, sur les ondes …

Best,
L'Amerloque

PS: Amerloque always has a week of food in the house, and another two weeks of canned goods in the country house. Perhaps that comes from his American upbringing. (smile)

[Michelle]

I'm glad that I found your blog by accident. I've been a Francophile for a while but as an American, I have a very hard time understanding their psyche when it comes to these kinds of issues. I guess it's the difference in growing up in a system where being fired for no cause was possible. What I don't think they seem to understand is that that type of firing does not happen very often. Companies that fire people for no reason don't get new employees. Companies that treat their employees well and only get rid of employees that do their jobs have employees who appreciate their employers. No one likes to work with lazy or incompetent people. I'm sure that I'm naive about the entire issue but I do think that they are missing some of these important points.

[Azure-Te]

I feel the American POV is naive, and the French turn of mind is decadent. Narrow is the path...

[KaG]

Hi there,

Well, in fact, interviewing anti-CPE people was a bit logical as what Chirac said was an answer for them.
Pro-CPE had just to say "the president made a step forward, it is a good thing"...

I think that Chirac could not content pro and anti CPE. As we say, "il a ménagé la chèvre et le chou" which is a bad thing during these circumstances.

If we wanted the law to be changed, he had just to ask for a new reading at the Assemblée.
As the Assemblée is on his side, the law would have been changed quickly and anti-CPE couldn't do anything more.

(Sorry for my english, it is far behind me ;) )

I'm a small business owner, and I'm against the CPE (and the CNE, by the way, as I'm not concerned by the CPE (which fits for more than 20 employees companies)).
Of course companies are not supposed to fire employees after 2 years, which is illogical.
Then, why would the law offer this possibility, if the problem is not there? ;)

I think that the main problem comes from elsewhere : how can you ask employees more flexibility when at the same time, big companies to make the best profits they ever made?
And that these profits are, for most of them, distributed to shareholders, and bosses while the profits came from shareholders (I'm ok with that), but...employees, too.

At the moment, in France, people have a feeling of injustice : rich people get richer, just by "mechanics", while poor people don't, or, even, get poorer...
Government asks them to tighten the belt (sorry for galliscism) while the richer don't have.
At the same time, people have to pay more and more to put gas in their cars, "because of oil price and Iraq war", but Total has made a benefit of 12 billions euros.

With this kind of things, it is easy to understand that people are fed up in a system they can't trust anymore...

(J'en profite pour vous remercier pour votre blog que je trouve sympa et instructif ;) )

[Stranger in London]

I'm French, currently living in London. I went back to France one week ago and was amazed by all this incoherence about the CPE. Even tough all of this chaos comes from my own country, I quite agree with you. French attitude can be extremely archaic sometimes. Either on the government side or the French trade unions side. The one year probation period from Chirac seemed like a good proposal to me. Even more so that the CPE "probation period" is not a "real probation period" per say: you do get money after one month if you are fired, while with a real probation period, you get nothing. There is indeed a 20%+ unemployment rate with younger people in France. Would they really rather the government do nothing about it? Really making me think twice before ever going back in France...

[Fabrice]

I knew i had forgotten something : i wanted to mention a program i fell upon by accident the other day : it's on sunday, on France 2, right after the "13 heures" newscast. The presenter, Rachid Arab, asks regular folks in the streets of Paris, sometimes other cities, their opinion about the hot topic of the week and lets them debate for a bit to see if anything valuable comes out. 2 weeks ago when the debate about CPE was heating up, he assembled a really diverse group of people with diverging opinions. It was kind of enlightening to hear a young french guy of Maghrebic descent say that french youth should be made to accept hardship and the virtues of work instead of desperately avoiding them at all cost. Interesting to note this kid had almost never been unemployed. Also enlightening was a french girl, also of Maghrebic descent, who tried to convince another one that any measure that can make finding a job easier is good to take as it can be a gateway to a better one and always a valuable experience. The other girl, an african girl, in contrast was against the CPE because as she put it : how can she borrow money to buy a house and ask for a line of credit if she's not assured to keep her job eternally ? yes i know. I know France 2 keeps a videobank of past programs so if interested you should be able to get webcasts from their site.

From Sedulia:

Thanks Fabrice, that sounds really interesting!