Riots in France

Steve (as 41oo) wrote:

Well France won 31:6 and deservedly so

Allez les Bleues

Well done Francis

Wait until I'll get the results of our rugby team!

(On April 4, versus "Welsh Districts" )

you play rugby in Germany?!!!

Villepin stands firm on jobs law after rioting France riots

By Hugh Scofield in Paris
Published: 13 March 2006

The embattled French prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, last night stood by a hotly contested youth employment programme, despite growing protests, plunging popularity ratings, and grumbling within his centre-right government.

A day after riot police used force to evacuate 300 demonstrating students from the Sorbonne University in Paris, M de Villepin appeared on the main evening news to defend the controversial First Employment Contract, a flexible new jobs contract for under 26 year-olds which opponents say will entrench job insecurity.

The new law was essential to fight youth unemployment, M de Villepin said. It would be applied, he said, though he promised to add new guarantees on salary-levels and access to housing, "The law that has been voted will be enforced. But, as provided for in the law, I want the guarantees which are included in it to complemented by new guarantees" that will be negotiated with unions and employers, the prime minister said.

In his toughest test since taking office last June, M de Villepin has faced demonstrations by hundreds of thousands of students and workers, a socialist opposition invigorated by a rare sense of common purpose, and rumbling resentment within the ruling Union for a Popular Movement about his style of government.

Polls show that after a long political honeymoon in which the public seemed to favour his sense of mission, there is now growing disenchantment. At the same time a clear majority of the population - up to 65 percent in some surveys and a higher proportion of young people - say the CPE should be withdrawn.

With more protests planned for this week, some commentators even suggested his future could be on the line. Having made the youth jobs programme a personal campaign, he would be in an untenable position if - say - his mentor President Jacques Chirac decided the political damage was too high and ordered him to row back.

Introduced into an equal opportunities bill that was drawn up in response to last November's riots, the CPE was meant to be a way of encouraging employers to take on young job-seekers - whose problems in finding employment is an increasingly urgent social problem. Some 23 percent of under 26 year-olds are unemployed, but the figure is more than 50 percent in the country's high-immigration suburbs.
Under the contract, which was approved by parliament last week and should come into effect next month, youngsters are taken on for an initial two years during which period they can be fired without explanation. Opponents say it is cut-price labour "a (grave) la Anglo-Saxon."

Protest brought hundreds of thousands of students and workers onto the streets on Tuesday, followed by occupations, strikes and sit-ins at more than half of France's 85 universities. The violent denouement of the Sorbonne occupation - with barricades in the corridors - brought immediate if exaggerated comparisons with May 1968.

Visiting the scene Education Minister Giles de Robien angrily accused protesters of vandalising university property. But Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the Green party Euro-deputy who was a leader of the May 1968 uprising, said the reaction was excessive. "The government's going off the rails. Governments always make the same mistakes. When they resort to force they lose," he said.

As a sign of growing ferment inside the ruling party, yesterday's newspapers carried anonymous remarks from senior UMP members, criticising the prime minister - who has never stood in an election - for a haughty self-regard.

"He acts alone, with absolutely no consultation, even though he does not have the legitimacy of an election behind him," a deputy told Le Journal du Dimanche.

M de Villepin's rival for leadership of the centre-right, Interior Minister and UMP chief Nicolas Sarkozy, flew back early from a trip to the French Caribbean to handle the Sorbonne disturbances, but was keeping a discreet silence.

The row has come on top of a series of other difficulties for M de Villepin, including the bird flu scare, the embarrassing recall of the decommissioned aircraft-carrier the Clemenceau from India on environmental grounds, and a parliamentary debacle over attempts to regulate file-sharing by Internet.

He's doing France a huge favor.

Villepin stands firm on jobs law after rioting France riots

Chirac backs French PM as protests flare up again

Tue Mar 14, 2006 16:55 PM GMT

By Sophie Louet and Brian Rohan

BERLIN/PARIS (Reuters) - French President Jacques Chirac offered "total and unreserved" support on Tuesday to his embattled prime minister, who faced new demonstrations against a youth job law protesters have vowed to defeat.

Hundreds of students, some banging drums and blowing whistles, gathered outside the Sorbonne University in Paris where riot police evicted sit-in students at the weekend.

The Sorbonne was the birthplace of a 1968 uprising that shook France.

"Villepin needs to recognise his error and resume negotiations," said Antoine Troussier, 18, one of thousands of students nationwide demanding Villepin withdraw his CPE "first job contract".

The protests have disrupted around half of France's 80-odd universities and have mushroomed into the biggest test of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin's 10 months in office, prompting speculation about his future.

With more demonstrations scheduled on Thursday and Saturday, Chirac ended a long silence over protests and backed the youth jobs contract as "an important element" in the fight against youth unemployment.

"It goes without saying that I totally and unreservedly support the activities conducted by the prime minister and the French government," Chirac said at a news conference in Berlin after a joint session of the German and French cabinets.

Villepin, whose prospects for a 2007 presidential bid have been hurt by the youth contract furore, remained in Paris where he again defended his plan against a welter of hostile questions in parliament.

Protesters, trade unions and opposition politicians say the new contract makes it easier to fire young workers, while Villepin argues it encourage firms to hire and helps to cut youth unemployment from some 23 percent.

"The CPE is a useful contract because it will create jobs for young people in difficulty," Villepin told parliament. "The CPE is fair and it is balanced."

POLITICAL RISKS

Villepin's refusal to make substantive concessions has frustrated key ministers and undermined support among deputies of the ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP).

Party boss Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister, told deputies they had to back the government but be "realistic about the political situation", deputies at the meeting told reporters.

Publicly, Sarkozy has backed Villepin but allowed close allies to subtly distance him from the plan by calling for changes.

Analysts say presidential hopeful Sarkozy is condemned to support his rival as a complete climbdown could prove fatal to the right's chances next year.

Demonstrations are watched nervously by governments in France because street protests in 1995 are widely seen as having been responsible for the defeat of conservative Prime Minister Alain Juppe in snap elections two years later.

"We are determined and confident. Mobilisation is getting stronger and stronger," Bruno Juillard, head of the UNEF students' union, which has spearheaded the protests, said.

Left-wing parliamentarians have asked the Constitutional Council to strike down the law.

Villepin's vague promise of talks on secondary issues, made during a Sunday television interview watched by some 11 million people, has only antagonised those demanding the CPE be axed.

National Assembly speaker Jean-Louis Debre, a Chirac stalwart and Villepin ally, said the text could be amended or modified but ruled out abandoning the measure outright.

(Additional reporting by Paul Carrel, Jon Boyle, Kerstin Gehmlich)

:Is this the tip of the Capitalist France iceberg, a nudge down the plank of the ship of Socialism...??

What is the motivation to do well at work, if no one can fire you?