SuperFrenchie

I watched tonight’s re-broadcast from Paris and listened to Chirac, then the responses from the Left and Socialists. Although I’m not really qualified to have an impression, (not being French) my impression was that Chirac made a good, reasonable attempt to get out of this situation. But the critics really nailed him!

So I suppose the real test will come Tuesday when we see how the students react. They will also have had a couple days to mull over Chirac’s comments, rather than to immediately react in front of TV cameras.

More puzzling to me was Sarkozy’s support which was shown after everyone else bashed Chirac.

And just after Chirac, Sarko said how wise is our president.
Two things are sure now : the following days will be harder for the people who just want to work, eat and sleep (have the americans an equivament to “métro-boulot-dodo”?), and we will probably have a president from the Parti Socialiste in 2007.
I don’t believe in God, but I may probably go to pray in the first chruch I see if I want to have a train to Paris next week-end …

Do you know “The Babe Theory”, by the conservative satirist P.J. O’Rourke (in his Parliament of Whores)? “Beautiful women are always on the cutting edge of social trends. Remember how many beautiful women were in the anti-war movement twenty years ago? In the yoga classes fifteen years ago? At the discos ten years ago? On Wall Street five years ago? Where the beautiful women are is where the country is headed”.
If he is right, Chirac is in trouble.

But can we really trust Rourke? The guy is also a ugly french basher (”The French are a smallish, monkey-looking bunch and not dressed any better, on average, than the citizens of Baltimore. True, you can sit outside in Paris and drink little cups of coffee, but why this is more stylish than sitting inside and drinking large glasses of whiskey I don’t know”).

Even though the unions and students are furious about it, I think this is going to ease the public opinion who has only heard protesters complain about the two points Chirac has adjusted.

Jathenais #3: I think when we say “eat-work-sleep” it’s the same mentality, though it doesn’t rhyme.

The impression I had after watching a couple of interviews after Chirac spoke, particularly Bruno (who’s name I’ve forgotten, the head of the student union), who said that they are waiting for the CPE to be repealed and nothing less will do, is that all will be at a stalemate now. If his immediate reaction has anything to do with it, I have the feeling that the strikes will continue. I also can’t see the government caving in and repealing it. I’m very interested to see where this is going to go…. as long as I don’t have problems getting to CDG to come home for a visit on the 12th!!

don’t worry vivi, the strike will be over by June 12th ! ;=)
(in June students are on holidays and workers prepare their summer holidays - they are too busy!)

bon maintenant si tu voulais dire le 12 avril…alors là tu es dans la mer** ^^

il ne te reste plus qu’à demander à SF de te faire des bumper stickers :
NO STRIKE IN CDG…PLEASE

Update 4/1/06: Besides his “babe theory” (#5), P.R. has an interesting take on young would-be Mariannes and the press in Libe’s blog.

*M* si si c’est le 12 avril, perhaps I’d better start for Paris today!!

I have to say that Chirac is quite a savy politician .
With his speech yesterday he managed to disapoint his(supposedly) majority by scraping the two things that made the CPE a sort of breakthrough in labor law ; ie. the 2 years testing period and the firing of employee without giving any reason .

He also managed to infuriate even more the people protesting who have received the speech as pure “provocation” .

so the law goes through BUT a new law will be passed to ,in fact, scrap the 2 elements of the previous law.

absolutely brillant !

ps: I think that the problem of french politics is that the right is not really the right ;just like the left promises a lot before the election and fail to deliver .
( Chirac is more a rad-soc than anything ;just like Mitterrand never was a socialist)

Ok, this is not CPE related, but take a look at this: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,,1744580,00.html

Rice should’ve known better. When brits say “don’t mention the war” they have a reason for that. Us Germans know that best of all :lol:.

Very funny the new image about Jeanne d’Arc.

Is it la France under a second revolution?

Fleur,

Jeanne d’Arc?!
Hell no, it’s a Marianne! 1789’s french revolution icon.

And, no, I dunno if France’s under a second revolution or not. What’s sure is France have a crisis. One rampant since years if not decades.

I see this CPE thing as l’arbre qui cache la foret, if the govt. manages to ram it through it will then push on with more reform to weaken the social net and institutionalize precarity. Not to say that some reform isn’t needed but I don’t trust these politicians as they are just doing the bidding of the corporate and investors class dragging us along in this race to the bottom.

I know many on this blog, especially among the French expats have espoused the neo-liberal creed worshiping at the free market altar, or they wouldn’t be here. Having personally more le cul entre deux chaises I don’t think the US model is workable in France.
And these endless comparisons between the US and France are getting to be tedious IMO, except to justify a good dose of self-flagellation.
The US will always be 14 times bigger than France, its economy more dynamic, its people more numerous and optimistic, its reach much broader, along with more extremes of wealth and poverty as well as 50 millions uninsured.

So may be the French are doing us all a favor by dragging their feet in this global race to the bottom. Not everybody everywhere wants or can be an entrepreneur willing to bust his/her ass 60+ hours a week with no life outside of work.

Duhh! I am aware that nobody forces anybody to be an entrepreneur in the US. This was a rather clumsy figure of speech on my part to illustrate the fundamental difference between here and there.

My point is that senseless deregulation and blind trust in trickle-down economics is a natural here in the craddle of capitalism, where only a great depression on the magnitude of the 1930’s could generate more interventionist policies.

In France as you know it’s not only the young or the employees who are more risk-adverse than their American counterparts, but everybody from top to bottom cling to their acquis sociaux or corporatists (secu. allocs. etc) Here on the other hand they have a lot less to loose (that’s freedom right? :))but Americans still got cold feet when W tried to mess with social security and if I remember right, only the editorial pages of the WSJ berated them for being so worried about the “beautiful” invisible hand of the market.

So SF, you give us your take on life in Montgomery County from an upper middle class entrepreneur perspective and that’s great. And I trust that you are an enlighted employer, but in my more blue collar Appalachian experience they are the exception, so that’s why we need some rules in this game. Regrettably
not everyone can work for SF.

So again I will end a post le cul entre deux chaises: plus de laissez-faire en France, more regulations in the US.

Alrikan (#27): //So again I will end a post le cul entre deux chaises: plus de laissez-faire en France, more regulations in the US.//

I’m pretty much with you on that

not everybody in America sees the unrest in France as pinko lazy asses screaming for hand-out.
see Barbara Ehrenreich article here:http://tinyurl.com/r5zxq

31, 32. Alrikan & EYGH:

Is this the link you want?

Coincidentally, I was just reading another Ehrenreich blog entry here (on US employment, nothing about the CPE).

Thanks Lwp.

Interesting point of vue but probably totaly “minoritaire” in the US.

greg: never heard of that particular theory, and I don’t live in France right now, so I can’t say whether it’s popular there. But I do think they should sell the film rights .

GREG (#36) The conspiracy theory certainly is not popular in France. To the point it isn’t even talked of. Totally off the radar screen in fact. A maniac (you know who he is but I don’t want to even write his name) published a book some months after the attacks, launching the conspiracy theory and very unfortunately was invited on the TV set of Ardisson (who I consider as a mere whore). Totally discredited now. The guys you were answering at Riché are nuts. En bons français: Des petits cons! Don’t waste your time with them…

[...] In other news girls in France (or a girl) have been loosening their necklines in solidarity with Delacroix’s Marianne (via boingboing) to protest a labor law called the CPE that would have allowed employers to fire certain kinds of workers before the age of 26. Of course this seems a bad thing, until you hear it’s like impossible to get a decent job in France after college, and the unemployment is like 22% among the young. It kind of seems like the students are shooting themselves in the foot with this one, but then from my vantage in this country, I’m pretty used to having almost no job security. [...]