That People Should Not Fear Their Government,
by xaosseed
…but that a Government Should Fear Its People – a favourite saying of Savages, a sort of touchstone for some kind of ‘right on’ free state – his kind of place recently.
But on observation of recent events, I have come to the conclusion that the place he wants to live is France. The French government is terrified of its voters and the voters know it. Everytime reform is broached, the streets ignite – and these latest protests are a terrible evolution of that – not advocating anything, not trying to bring about change, but trying to actively resist it. Marching in defence of your first job being a job for life.*
Which is all well and good if you were born in the right neighbourhood, went to the right colleges and Papa know the right people – Papa got the daughter and her boyfriend jobs with us last summer – because you have no end of opportunities.
But what these protests were saying, all these well heeled middle-class kids who just through sheer social inertia wouldn’t loose a damn thing if the law passed, what they were saying was a big ‘fuck you’ to the banlieus. Not in resisting the CPE, but the attendant atmosphere of ‘no change, not now, not ever’.
So if you’re in the wrong 20%, sorry, although you are French, you’re not the right kind of French. Employers will not take the risk to hire you because 1/4 of all attempts to get rid of employees end up in employment tribunals and those take on average 30 months with 2/3 deciding for the employee, too much potential hassle for anyone with the wrong address.
This is the use a people puts their governments fear to. God, I wish Chirac would grow a pair. He’s a swaggering shit when someone at a business conference speaks in English not French, or he’s threatening to nuke people, but holding the line and pushing *crucially* needed reforms? Cowers silently for weeks, then rips the carpet from under his protege. De Villepin did his best, Chirac fucked him over, and now its down to Sarkozy and whoever the socialists can throw against him.
But no matter who is in the next government, we the EU taxpayer are stuck subsidising Provencale farmers because there will be nothing but the most toothless of half-measures for the next half-dozen years at least.
I’m not angry, I’m furious.
* I actually have one of these job for life contracts and they will in fact have to carry me out of there in a box, bar my dosing myself with cocaine and pissing in the coffee machine, which would get me under Health & Safety, though I could still try and swing detox, rehab and reinstatement, and the odds would be non-nil.
Comments
Ah yes, the classical Anglosphere argument. The French are socially immobile and scared of change. Well I, for one, would gladly protest (peacefully, as the vast majority of the gatherings were carried) on such a law that essentially makes it impossible to found a career before 26.
Isn’t it marvellous to be able to stand here in the land of pure social mobility, where merit alone gets you to the top, without any stratification of the society? I for one am certain that the US, UK and Ireland are without doubt homogeneous societies without any division that might be on politico-tribal grounds, or indeed economic.
The Right in the English-speaking world is perpetually concerned with the immobile French proportion, while ignoring the crippling immobility we inflict on our own people.
I am pleased that the French do exist, and that their people are willing to resist the unrestrained greed that Ireland and the UK have bought into with greasy-palmed glee.
Maybe it is we who should grow a pair and look to see if people are perhaps allowed live another way?
Fuck!
Fuck!
I’m with both of you on this.
Fuck!
On the one hand I can see what these laws were meant to achieve in concept, i.e. the lowering of the risk for employers to take on young staff. While I agree that employment reform with that goal in mind is a Good Thing, especially in a country like France, where unemployment in certain areas, and more importantly in certain demographics, is rife.
But, those protesters know as well as I do that business will see it as a free pass to hire and fire young, unprotected workers with a, ‘if you don’t like it get out’ attitude totally at odds with the employer/employee relationship that has been the norm in France for decades, ie. a civil union of distrust and respect. It would create and entire work-force hired on a fast-food chain model.
Me, I like the French alot, for all sorts of reasons. I think they can be thick-headed Luddites on occasion, but they won’t stand for a Government that doesn’t listen. Do you think the French would have listened to Bertie and the Boys telling us we had to vote again because we ‘got it wrong’ the first time?
These protests will hopefully force the French government to write a better set of legislation, doing what they want it to do, and not falling into the hands of free-loading employees, or grasping employers.
France, a country where everyone knows where the Guillotine is kept.
I can’t agree uber on this. Being able to get a job, even if you are at a easy risk of losing it, is much better than not being able to get anything. French employers are more likely to spend incredible amounts of money on extra machinery in their place of work (like extra dishwashing machines or what not) than hire extra workers because of the inflexible employment laws. Sure, making a career before 26 might be a bit more difficult, but having a career before 26 is almost impossible if you have no work experience whatsoever, and that’s what nearly 30% – 40% of the under 26s in the suburbs in poor areas in France have – no jobs and no work experience and all the time in the world to riot and burn cars. As long as there are minimum wage laws in place than a fast hire and fire process for young workers is not as bad as enforced unemployment.
And this climbdown will not inspire better legislation unfortunately because better legislation will involve compromise on somene’s part, and the story of France as we know it is that they are incapable of accepting compromise when there’s a good protest to be had instead.
Part of the point of a “government fearing its people” is that “its people” include the whole mess of ‘em, and not just job-for-life papa and his socially conservative bank account. We’re not acknowledging here other stories that have recently come out of France, namely the Muslim boy who was chased into the power station by les gendarmes. As far as that goes, I’m totally certain that the government-paid police were scared out of their wits that the Muslim kid’s family would have the kind of legal power to earn some retribution.
No, the problem in France is that “the government” is difficult to identify and put a monocolor face on. Remember, this is the country of the tricolores, and each color is afraid of the others; a government being afraid of its people assumes that the government be effective in response to the fear, which is hardly the case in France. The government is not afraid of the people, the people are afraid of their future, and people in the government are no different than people ruled by the government. France is a country that has a huge soft spot for culture, and the United States, for example, is laughing its head off that the French care so much about identity.
Because after all, isn’t United States culture world culture now? Everyone should be content with that.
I’ve done a lot of chattering online and off with people and the French kids I’ve spent the summer talking to are a) almost all pursuing higher education and so would have been unaffected because by the time they went looking for work they would have been over the age limit or b) all living in London.
Its not that the system doesn’t work, it just is in dire need of a retune to recognise that either the huge potential workforce of first/second generation immigrants needs to be tapped for tax base to sustain the social model or the social models costs need to be reduced. I think everyone in principle wants to go with the first options, its just making it fly thats tricky.
[...] On the general topic of ‘things done differently on the continent’ – see previous rant on French strikes where perhaps I was a little harsh on dear old Jacques, but never mind – I have spoken with a number of different people, from different backgrounds and on the proviso that none of them were a) lying to me or b) exagerating to try and get in my pants then I learned a few things that are interesting. [...]
French employers are more likely to spend incredible amounts of money on extra machinery in their place of work than hire extra workers because of the inflexible employment laws. Sure, making a career before 26 might be a bit more difficult, but having a career before 26 is almost impossible if you have no work experience whatsoever, and that’s what nearly 30% – 40% of the under 26s in the suburbs in poor areas in France have – no jobs and no work experience and all the time in the world to riot and burn cars.