07 March 2006 Blog Home : March 2006 : Permalink
Youth unemployment, at 23 per cent, is widely blamed on protective labour laws that put off employers. Jobless rates of up to 50 per cent on immigrant housing estates helped to fuel last autumn’s riots.
Yet despite that, and despite all those calls for the government to "do something" to stop the CarBQ riots, the extremely weak first step that the government has taken is immediately opposed by those who would probably not be affected by it anyway:The CPE is opposed by a majority of the young and the Left, who fear employers will use it to exploit younger workers. Business leaders have given it half-hearted support, demanding a full-scale revamp of labour laws. The battle over the CPE has rallied the demoralised Socialist opposition and unions to resist what they depict as M de Villepin’s drive towards “Anglo-Saxon-style” deregulation.
About the only silver-lining to this particular cloud is that it shows that l'Escroc and Vile Pin are unable to sell any sort of liberalization and that hence they are madly unpopular and hopefully this paves the way for Sarko to become the next president of France. In true cheese-eating surrender-monkey style l'Escroc managed to get himself off to Saudi Arabia where he is sucking up to the Arabs in the hope that they will award French companies huge defense contracts. Given the propensity of both sides for kickbacks and bribes (something that the BBC article fails to mention) I reckon that the chances of France winning at least some Saudi contracts is high.These dreadful figures, however, have still failed to persuade people that reform is needed. Even students, who should benefit most, are planning demonstrations against the proposals. There are several explanations. The first is the failure of the political establishment, and of President Chirac in particular, to tell the truth. M Chirac has repeatedly tried to blame others, especially the “Anglo-Saxons”, for plotting against the “French model”. Last year he even insisted that “liberalism” — meaning market economics — was as evil as communism. And as next year’s presidential elections draw near, no politician now seems ready to tell voters what they do not want to hear. Even the normally robust Nicolas Sarkozy has toned down his earlier calls for a break with the past.
Secondly, the long-term malaise in France has been exacerbated by political feuding so that almost any setback takes a toll on public credibility. M de Villepin is not only struggling with unemployment, but faces a nationalist backlash, shown in the opposition to a proposed foreign takeover of French utilities, anxieties over the outbreak of bird flu and the lingering resentment after last year’s riots.
Thirdly, France has been obsessed by a perceived decline in its global position: the loss of influence within the European Union, the erosion of the French language, falling standards in education, scandals in the justice system and, of course, the loss of the 2012 Olympics to Britain. Change is seen by too many as betrayal, reform as defeatism. The great casualty is political honesty. Sooner or later, however, reality will assert itself — to the benefit of the unemployed and the alienated.
The only politician with any shred of credibility right now appears to be Sarko and, as I say, hopefully this will remain true for the next year until the elections. The left is still in disarray with the husband and wife fight between Ségolène Royal and François Hollande for leadership. Although Mme Royal looks likely to win the battle and is more reformist, the chances are that the socialists will remain in disarray. On the far right, le Pen and co will dread Sarko because, despite recent toning down of rhetoric, he is able to present himself as the "tough" candidate and steal away a lot of the voters who voted for Le Pen simply because they couldn't stand either l'Escroc or the socialists.