Encore: France Surrenders

[MavKikiNYC]

April 10, 2006
Chirac to Replace Youth Jobs Law

By KATRIN BENNHOLD
PARIS, April 10 — French President Jacques Chirac announced today that a contested labor law would be taken off the books, handing a victory to student groups and labor unions who have demonstrated in the millions in recent weeks to have the measure scrapped.

The announcement is a blow for Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, the chief architect of the law, who until late last week still categorically ruled out dropping the legislation. It comes only eight days after Mr. Chirac had formally enacted the legislation, albeit with promises of a speedy revision and far-reaching modifications.

But over the last week, students and union officials made it clear that they would not be satisfied with anything less than a withdrawal of article 8 — the part of the legislation which creates a controversial new contract that makes it easier for employers to fire young workers.

"The president of the republic has decided to replace Article 8 of the law on equal opportunities with measures that favor the professional insertion of young people in difficulty," Mr. Chirac's office said in a statement.

It was the first unambiguous admission of defeat by Mr. Chirac, who had so far sought to defuse the crisis without disavowing Mr. Villepin, his longstanding ally and favored successor in next year's presidential elections.

Mr. Villepin had championed the First Employment Contract, known by its French acronym as the CPE, in order to curb youth unemployment, which is at 22 percent. It would have given businesses, who say that the country's tough labor protections are a disincentive to hiring, the right to fire workers younger than 26 for any reason.

Speaking shortly after Mr. Chirac issued his statement, Mr. Villepin said that it was no longer feasible to maintain the measure.

"The necessary conditions of confidence and serenity are not there today, neither on the part of the young people, nor on the part of companies to apply the First Employment Contract," Mr. Villepin said in a televised address shortly after Mr. Chirac had issued his statement.

"I wanted to act quickly because the dramatic situation and the desperation of so many young people demand it," he said. "That was not understood by everyone and I regret that."

Following talks with student organizations and labor unions last week, senior lawmakers from the governing center-right party presented a revised proposal to parliament on today, though details of the new plan were not immediately available.

Union leaders and student representatives were to meet later today to decide whether Mr. Chirac's promise to "replace" the contract was enough to drop their demand for formal abrogation.

Early reactions appeared to be favorable.

"The CPE is dead and buried," said Jean-Claude Mailly of the FO union. "The goal has been achieved."

Francois Chereque, head of the CFDT, France's largest union, told Agence-France Presse: "If there is a new text in which the CPE does not appear, that will mean it has been withdrawn, that is what counts."

Julie Coudry, president of the Student Confederation, one of the organizations behind the two-month protest movement said on LCI television: "Today I think we can say that they have finally understood and that we are satisfied, I think it's the word we can use."

The crisis and the humiliating climb-down appear to have severely weakened the government. According to a poll published Sunday in the newspaper Le Parisien, 85 percent of the respondents see both Mr. Villepin and Mr. Chirac as weakened, while more than half say it has boosted the position of Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.

A number of French newspapers reported over the weekend that the wording in a new bill was being held up by a disagreements between Mr. Villepin and Mr. Sarkozy, his main rival on the right.

The minister of employment, Jean-Louis Borloo, told Le Monde newspaper that the new plan will include increasing government subsidies to employers who hire people under 26 who face the biggest obstacles to finding jobs. He said the cost to the government in the second half of the year would be about $180 million.

[Drbio]

France would never surrender.

[sixeightmkw]

does France's gov have any nuts? geez.

[Arne]

3 million on the streets, I guess even the US government would surrender if roughly 10% of their population would go on the streets to demonstrate.