Right now, being the French Prime Minister isn't the most comfortable job in the world.
With millions of protestors, according to Reuters:
More than 2.5 million people demonstrated across France on Tuesday to demand the withdrawal of a youth job contract imposed by the government, the Force Ouvriere trades union said."We should reach three million as on the 28th of March," a spokesman for the union said. Some 700,000 people demonstrated in the capital Paris, he said, the same figure given by the main CGT union.
and reports saying that protesters want blood (45% of people polled believe Dominque de Villepin should step down)...not good times for Villepin
So why the social unrest?
Well, it all comes with the First Employment Contract. And the part of the FEC that is most contentious is that it
would create an age-based exception to traditional French labor regulations by allowing workers who were under 26 years of age at the time of hiring to be fired without cause at any time during the first two years of employment.
Ouch. That won't sit will with anyone under 26. Job security would become nonexistent.
Unions say that unless this is repealed by mid-April, there will be more protests. And it looks like the two sides aren't close on the issues.
On Friday, President [Jacques] Chirac pledged to shorten the period in which young people could be fired from two years to one and said employers would need to give a reason for dismissal.Trade unions say the proposed amendments are unacceptable.
My prediction? The government will continue to play chicken with the unions and the disgruntled youth in France. And there will be more protests.
That "disgruntled youth" you speak off are mainly immigrants from Africa and the middle east angry with the secular republic of France. Its funny how the media hasnt reported anymore about France's riots.
I guess they figure that every burned-out French bus looks pretty much the same.
Actually no, I was going to school in France during this time. Our school was closed because the neighboring french high school was violently protesting.
The disguntled youth...were exactly that. The immigrants may have been protesting probably cause they were the ones to most likely be fired for no reason.
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"Is it true, said Candide, that people in Paris are always laughing?"
-Voltaire