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INDEPTH: FRANCE - STUDENT PROTESTS
FAQs
CBC News Online | March 28, 2006
Students protests in France are hardly rare events. But the protests of March 2006
seem to loom especially large. It isn't just the huge number of students taking part, or the riots, or the persistence of the demonstrations, or that trade unions joined in. These protests have people talking because they directly address severe problems in the French economy and larger issues in French society. They also underscore the political difficulties inherent in trying to make any effort to change the status quo.
 Protesters across France are pressuring Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin to withdraw a controversial youth employment law. (Bob Edme/AP Photo)
What are the students so mad about?
The government of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin brought in a new labour law that is to take effect in April. The "Contrat de Première Embauche" (First Job Contract) is known in France by its acronym, CPE.
Basically, it lets companies fire employees under the age of 26 for any reason, as long as they've been on the job less than two years. Students say the law turns them into the "Kleenex generation" – a throwaway class of workers whom employers can fire at will, simply because they're young. This hasn't gone over well in a country founded on the principles of "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité."
Why did the government bring in the new labour law?
Prime Minister de Villepin said the "first job contract" will actually help to lower the 23-per-cent unemployment rate among France's young – the highest in western Europe. Among immigrant youth, who rioted in their own ghettos last fall over their miserable prospects, the jobless rate is closer to 50 per cent.
The government's hope is that employers will be more likely to hire younger workers if they know it wouldn't be next to impossible or prohibitively expensive to get rid of them.
Companies have told government that when it comes to locating a plant in western Europe, France's labour laws guarantee that it will be near the bottom of the list. France's GDP is rising at an annual rate of just 1.5 per cent – the result, corporate leaders say, of labour policies that make it increasingly difficult to compete.
 Students and workers demonstrate in Marseille, southern France, Tuesday. (AP Photo/Claude Paris)
Unions see the new labour law as the first prong of an attack on job security protections that are entrenched in French labour law. For example, it is currently very difficult to fire anyone who is in the public sector or has a permanent employment contract at a large company in France. Their unions have won their members a 35-hour work week, five-week vacations and iron-clad job security.
Those who have these privileges understandably want to keep them. Talk of "reform" sounds to them like little more than an attempt to take away benefits that they – and their parents – take for granted.
It also didn't help that the government brought in the new labour law without consulting the unions.
What are the political and social ramifications of these protests?
Students and public-sector unions are a potent force in French politics, and presidential elections are to be held in 2007. Prime Minister de Villepin wants to be the next president of France. But with de Villepin already unpopular, these protests growing, and polls suggesting that a strong majority of French citizens don't support the new employment law, the prime minister appears increasingly vulnerable.
These protests have also opened up debates on class, race and age.
The sectors of French society with strict job protection are overwhelmingly white.
The government introduced its new labour law in part, it said, because employers would be more likely to take hiring risks. That means young people, but especially the poorly trained immigrant youth in the suburbs, it said.
France's place in the EU is another matter. French voters turned down the EU constitution last year; globalization is especially unpopular in the country. The "flexibility" that French employers are demanding so they can compete with the rest of the world looks little more than an excuse to cut benefits and a destroy a lifestyle that many in the world envy.
The average retirement age in France is 59. According to the OECD, the average French worker spends just 1,431 hours a year on the job – the third lowest among 26 advanced economies. Critics say France must make some changes to ensure its long-term viability. But it's no wonder that so many in French society want to leave things as they are.
It's interesting to note that next door, in Germany, the governing coalition has managed to bring in reforms to labour laws that Der Spiegel says, in some respects, mirror the ones France is trying to impose. But there have been no mass protests in Germany, just "modest" debates in the Bundestag, Germany's national parliament.
In France, it seems compromise and communication are in much shorter supply.
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