Riots in France

Cars and shops set ablaze as Paris riots continue
By John Lichfield in Paris
Published: 24 March 2006

[...]
Scores of hooded youths ran riot around Les Invalides after a tense, but mostly peaceful, march protesting at the law passed by the Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, making it easier to hire, and fire, people under 26.
...


Multi-racial gangs of youths, mostly from the deprived Paris suburbs, had earlier charged through the protest march, smashing car windows and beating up other demonstrators who refused to hand over their mobile telephones.

As the official protest ended, these youths, not the main bulk of the marchers, confronted riot police and tried to occupy the large open space in front of the golden-domed Invalides building in the heart of Paris. Several cars were set-alight and the windows of a car-hire office smashed.

...

I could imagine a similar reaction in other European countries.

The public reaction in France seems - to me at least - to be grossly out of proportion to the presumed cause. Very strange.

I could imagine a similar reaction in other European countries.

Heard the one about the racist black comedian?

The Independent
22 March 2006

Dieudonné's one-man comedy show is all the rage in Paris but his act is virulently anti-semitic, exploiting the anger that exploded among young Arabs and blacks in the suburbs last autumn. Now he is talking about running for the Presidency. Until a couple of years ago, Dieudonné M'bala M'bala was a kind of French Lenny Henry, his comedy corrosive, satirical but good humoured. Since 2002, he has become a kind of French Louis Farrakhan. This month, he was found guilty of "incitement to racial hatred". But a phone-in opinion poll of Skyrock, a radio station popular with the urban and suburban young, had him coming in second, with 26%, to Jean-Marie Le Pen (29%).

Dieudonné brings together many of the poisonous issues in French politics and society: the contempt of many young people for mainstream politics; the shattering of the political consensus into tribal extremes of right and left; the racial and social exclusion and suppressed violence of the multi-racial suburbs. Most of all, however, Dieudonné has come to symbolise the rise of a "new anti-Semitism" among Arab and black youths and on the "white" far left.

There's a certain cult of strident radicalism that you just dont have (anymore) in most Northern or Central European countries...

Juncker also criticized the French government's plan to introduce a new
youth work contract, saying the measure would introduce an unacceptable level of
precariousness for workers.
The launch of the First Employment Contract (CPE), a temporary two-year
contract that can be revoked at will by the employer, has generated massive
protests among students and labour unions over the past days.
"If my father, who worked in a steel mile, had had a temporary contract
renewable every six months, I would never have been able to study law in
Strasbourg. Because people with modest incomes have to calculate. They don't
have money to throw out the window," Juncker said.
"Making a full-time work contract the exception, something out of the
ordinary, is a solution that will lead us straight into a wall," he said.

France's Sarkozy calls for compromise over jobs law
Sat Mar 25, 2006

By Thierry Leveque


PARIS (Reuters) - France's interior minister on Saturday urged the government to find a compromise to defuse a crisis over a new youth labor law that has triggered mass protests and sporadic riots.

Nicolas Sarkozy, a self-declared candidate for the 2007 presidential elections, expressed understanding for the young demonstrators in a speech at a meeting of his UMP party.

"Twenty years of mass unemployment, 15 years of mediocre economic growth, 10 years of sluggish purchasing power, seven political changes since 1981 -- how can we blame the young for saying out loud what their parents think?" he said.

Sarkozy was clearly seeking to distance himself from Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, who is also expected to run in next year's election and who held unsuccessful talks with labor union leaders on the row on Friday.

"Knowing to find a compromise, that is being courageous and useful to France. That is what the UMP demands and expects," Sarkozy said.

"When young people see (the law) as unjust, it is necessary to remove misunderstandings by organizing the conditions for dialogue and compromise," he added.

The row over the CPE First Job Contract, which allows employers to fire people under 26 without giving a reason during a two-year trial period, is one of the biggest crises in Villepin's 10-month administration.

In a setback for Villepin, most student leaders refused to come to a meeting he had called for Saturday.

Of seven student leaders, three went inside for talks while the others held a brief news conference in front of Villepin's Matignon office, calling for the withdrawal of the law proposal and for a massive turnout at planned protests on Tuesday.

Villepin said he wanted to find a solution via dialogue.

"I want to respond to the two main preoccupations of the young about the CPE -- the period of two years and the conditions of ending the contract," he said after the talks, adding more meetings with the students were planned next week.

PM UNDER PRESSURE

Villepin, who rammed the measure through parliament, says the CPE will help cut youth unemployment of around 23 percent.

Opponents say the contract will create a generation of throwaway young workers with no job security.

Last Thursday, rampaging youths torched cars, looted shops and robbed student demonstrators at the end of protest marches in Paris and major provincial cities.

Signaling splits within the government, Sarkozy on Thursday called for a six-month trial period for the CPE, which has highlighted rivalries ahead of the presidential election.

"What we need to do is to come up with answers," he said on Saturday. "All this needs to end as soon as possible, because every day that goes by adds to the conditions for a confrontation ... and maybe for a drama."

Bernard Thibault, head of the CGT Communist trade union, said the only way out was to withdraw the law.

"I fear that today the government is only trying to win time ... with the hope that perhaps public opinion will forget the main reason of objection, which is the refusal of yet another attack on the labor laws," he told Europe 1 radio.

Published three questions in Le Journal du Dimanche