Villepin the Iron man of France?

lili

punaise!
tu peux me répéter ça en français?
l'économie me prend la tête, alors imagine ce que cela peut donner en anglais:D
non, je plaisante:)
alors, quelle est la solution d'après toi? on se lance dans le libéralisme, nous nous contentons d'un bol de riz, nous évitons d'avoir des ennuis de santé, nous glisserons la pièce à tous les mendiants qui paveront les rues et nous nous endormirons le coeur léger après avoir suivi les quotations en bourse des grandes entreprises françaises sur tf1?
des fois je me demande à quoi nous sert de trimbaler un cerveau d'1 kg. les fourmis n'en ont cure.

répond moi en français stp. et je suis sérieuse cette fois ci;)

Sand

Translation: “I don’t like this evidence, so I’m just going to dismiss it as fixed.”

Translation: "I think election results are u****ortant. Clearly telephone polls are the best way to set policy."

And if those people react badly to those policies, the representatives of the people have a habit of backing down in democracies. Remember the Poll Tax in the UK?

That surrenders democracy to those who shout loudest on any particular issue. Who do you think sets US policy on Cuba? Is it the vast majority of Americans who couldnt care less about Cuba (possibly not even aware where it is), or vocal minority lobby groups organised and funded by violently anti-Castro Cuban-Americans? Would you be willing to entertain the possibility that the reason people feel their vote doesnt matter anymore might have something to do with politicians yielding to vocal lobby groups?

as for the way chirac has been elected in 2002, i'm not sure you really got the stuff.

Oh I got it - the nationalist socialist candidate got more votes than any of the regular socialists. The nationalist socialist vote is going to be split next time around between Le Pen and some other tool whose name I cant quite recall at this point, and the center right vote is going to be split between Sarkozy and Villepin so assuming the vanilla socialists can put a strong candidate forward theres a good chance theyll profit from almost the same circumstances that screwed them last time around. Would you then demand that the vanilla socialists implement center right policies instead of socialist ones? Not likely.

for this CPE.
the message of the french population is quite clear : we are in the 21th century, noway for us to come back to the 19th. if something might be done it will not be by screwing a part of the population regarding the age. or even by screwing the workers.

Nobodys asked the French population - theyve asked a sample group of French people some question (I havent seen the poll but given the uniformly negative editorials I would sincerly doubt the poll wasnt loaded). Ive got another sample group of young French people here .... the most telling phrase is

"I prefer to live in a world where you can get fired within two weeks but find work quickly, than in a world where you have a job for life but it takes five years to find another if you lose it."

And who can blame him? Is your economic security greater in a system where you can move easily from one job to the next or in a system where your job is extremely difficult to get, and as hard to replace?

i don't know what you think about this but i find ashaming to see what has been the bilan of big french companies, the astronomic benefices they made in 2005 and we still hearing of restructuration!

Companies exist to be profitable - its what they do. If they werent profitable theyd be out of business and no one would be employed. Every employee has to increase the companies profit, directly or indirectly.

The real problem for the French economy is that its unemployment rate is terrible and has been for decades, so despite the profits of French companies, many French cant get a job. Ireland had such rates and we were an economic basketcase run by muppets on the periphery of Europe with no infrastructure, with our best and brightest fleeing to stronger more open economies in the UK and US. There were still successful Irish companies, but this wasnt of great benefit to Ireland as a whole.

It eventually got so bad that Ireland was faced with either complete economic collapse or fixing the problems, painful as it may be. France is not in as bad a position as Ireland was, but no economic system can sustain endemic unemployment indefinitly - even before the social problems of apathy and segregation between the employed elite and the unempleyed underclass are considered. I dont know why the French are so confident they cannot succeed in a more competitive system, or why they look to the future with such fear. If there are problems, identify them, fix them. The biggest and most pressing problem is that people find it hard to get a job in France, due largely to inflexiable contracts. The CPE isnt perfect, but it is a step in the right direction.

The current system was built in another era, on the assumptions of another era. If you wish to ensure the survival of the current model, then you and every French couple out there need to throw out the birth control and start pumping out kids to support you in later life, much as they do in the third world.

in france we do have already several sort of contracts. some of them are made for the bosses which want flexibility in work. we don't need a new contract.

So Ive noticed, the protestors are now widening their demands to reverse earlier reforms as well. Chiracs effort at compromise with them has predictably only encouraged them to continue protests, and to demand ever more. What an idiot he is.

The Corinthian

Sand wrote:

Translation: "I think election results are u****ortant. Clearly telephone polls are the best way to set policy."

That’s not the point I made. I accused you of dismissing evidence when it didn’t suit you, which is a different issue. But feel free to continue cherry picking what will back you up.

That surrenders democracy to those who shout loudest on any particular issue. Who do you think sets US policy on Cuba? Is it the vast majority of Americans who couldnt care less about Cuba (possibly not even aware where it is), or vocal minority lobby groups organised and funded by violently anti-Castro Cuban-Americans? Would you be willing to entertain the possibility that the reason people feel their vote doesnt matter anymore might have something to do with politicians yielding to vocal lobby groups?

That’s part of democracy Sand. Like it or lump it.

ambro25

lili wrote:

alors, quelle est la solution d'après toi?

On efface tout et on recommence

Je charie (à peine), mais le Code du Travail, Code des Impôts, Prudhommes, Cumulation des Avantages Acquis 'corporatiste' (par exemple, la prime de Charbon aux Employés SNCF, encore en vigueur sous forme pécunière, qui a été acquise dans les années 30 eut égard aux conditions de travail des cheminots à cette époque), etc. - Il y maintenant tant de personnes qui 'tirent la couverture à eux' sous une forme ou une autre, que n'importe quelle réforme est d'office, forcément, condamnée à l'immobilisme.

Dans ce contexte, à moins de sabrer tout pour tout le monde (ce que je trouverai très socialiste, après tout ) et recommencer sur des bases saines, je ne vois vraiment pas de solution à long terme.

lili wrote:

on se lance dans le libéralisme

Succintement: oui.

lili wrote:

nous nous contentons d'un bol de riz,

Tu exagères. Beaucoup. Elle vient d'un Slogan CGT celle-là? :rolleyes:

lili wrote:

nous évitons d'avoir des ennuis de santé,

Tu exagères. Quoique... effectivement, moins de Sécu mènerait peut-être à moins d'hypocondriaques donc moins de Trou de Sécu, etc.

Il me semble, également, que les complémentaires Santé deviennent la norme ces temps-ci?!?

lili wrote:

nous glisserons la pièce à tous les mendiants qui paveront les rues

Les Français ne font déjà plus la charité de nos jours?

Il me semble qu'il y a déjà nombre de mendiants dans les rues en France, et que multiplier les opportunités d'emplois plutôt que de les maintenir artificiellement fermées, aussi précaires que soient ces emplois, ne peut qu'améliorer la situation. Plus d'aide aux mendiants (et autres) contre moins ou pas plus d'emplois porteurs d'impôts sur le revenu = de moins en moins de richesse à distribuer. C'est pourtant simple!

lili wrote:

et nous nous endormirons le coeur léger après avoir suivi les quotations en bourse des grandes entreprises françaises sur tf1?

Non. Vous vous endormirez le coeur léger en sachant que même si votre emploi touche à sa fin pour une raison X, il existe toujours un autre emploi à saisir à court terme pour payer les traites, le prêt immobilier et metter à manger sur la table. J'en ai personnellement fait l'expérience à maintes reprises. Il faut se donner les moyens de réussir, et abandonner cette mentalité d'assistance à tout bout de champ: l'assistance devrait se cantonner à aider à relever la tête après un coup dur, assurer une période de transition professionelle/personnelle sans trop d'encombres, mais jamais devenir un mode de vie. :mad:

lili

i made a super long answer to you ambro with an example. and something went wrong, didn't works!

well, in short, i gave a definition of liberalism. because you talk to me of privileges for the cheminots but frankly, what is it comparing to those who pratice "abus de biens sociaux" at high scale?

well, my definition is this one :

liberalism is the right given to the financialists to freely exploiting the poors.

ambro25

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree, by the look of things

You can consider the "abus de biens sociaux" ("abuse of company goods/priviledges/assets", for the non-FR speaking here ) of which you speak under two angles:

(i) on the large-ish scale to which you refer (i.e. involving multinationals, e.g. Thomson-CSF, Matra, etc.), governement is always involved and benefits, to a degree. Either 'officially' (some Ministry gets €s, rebates, whatever) or 'unofficially' (some Minister gets €s, exotic holidays, whatever) - not that such practice is ever 'official', of course, but surely you get my gist.

(ii) on the 'everyday' scale, everyone in a company or another is at it: from the secretary who might help herself to a couple of pages of A4 paper for her home printer, to the manager who uses his company mobile phone for social calls, to the MD who puts a bar tab on his expenses.

At the end of the day, such "abus de biens sociaux" do not directly affect the notional 'everyday worker'. The most effect it would have, is to decrease the company's profitability and therefore eventually reduce taxation on same and therefore eventually reduce the redistribution on a national scale of tax income. That's irrelevant, since those people helping themselves (at any level) already get the additional benefit of the abuse, so are not losing out in this missed-out redistribution (their fault, my point is don't blame the boss only - look thy neighbor's eye and all that ). The worst effect it could have, is to actually undermine the company's finances so much that it goes to the wall. But you'd have to be digging in the pot pretty seriously to get to that stage.

But the "Avantages corporatistes" ("corporation advatages", advantages acquired by an entire type of profession, e.g. rail workers) to which I was referring are esconsed in either Law, Decrees or Work Conventions, and so are not 'criminal' (unlike the "Abus the biens sociaux", they're considered perfectly normal and not subject to legal scrutinity and due process of law if and when). But the net effect is no different, particularly when such 'advantages' stop being justified: reverting back to my 'rail workers' examples earlier, since when did rail workers stop shoveling coal into a locomotive? Yeah, about 20 years ago at least! So why are they still entittled to that 'coal allowance'? :mad: Because they or their Unions fought for it and got it when it mattered, which is fair enough, but God forbid they actually consider doing the decent thing and let it go when the actual reason behind it disappears altogether! As I said therefore - too many people pulling the cover to themselves. :mad:

lili

attends, tu ne vas pas comparer les 10 euros qu'un cheminot touche chaque mois à ta voiture de fonction ou ton appartement de fonction ou pire même, la résidence secondaire de ton patron!
tu as eu connaissance des bénéfices nets de la sncf cette année?
non?
fais le. le porte parole chargé d'annoncer la nouvelle était presque honteux de le faire. et je ne te parle même pas du résultat des compagnies pétrolières.

tiens, je vais juste d'entendre un truc rigolo à la radio. "les jeunes devront manifester jusqu'à leur retraite qu'ils n'auront jamais":D

ambro25

lili wrote:

attends, tu ne vas pas comparer les 10 euros qu'un cheminot touche chaque mois à ta voiture de fonction ou ton appartement de fonction ou pire même, la résidence secondaire de ton patron!

It's not me who made such a comparison first, it's you! :eek:

As for "voitures de fonction" (company cars) or "appart' de fonction" (company flat), you don't have to be a patron/boss to have one. The lowliest drinks or mobile phones representative gets a company 206 to go around the wholesalers/clients - what's your point? That he/she should go by foot? Or are there 'tiers', whereby such a lowly employee is entitled to a company car but a manager is not? :eek:

I've never heard of "company flats" outside of the Civil Service in France - you should see some of the beauties the Administration owns and leases well below the market price for various "civil servie dignitaries" in every single town in France.

A prime-positioned flat in Metz (2 min. walk to absolute center), in a recently-built (late-80s) "Résidence de Grand Standing" right on the river bank, current value about €350-€400k, that would rent for €1300-€1600 per month, currently rented to the DRAS (Direction Régionale des Affaires Sociales) Director for less than €500. Oh, wait, there's also the DRET (Direction Régionale de l'Equipement et des Travaux) Director in the same building, paying between €600 to €700 for a 3-bedroom duplex. How do I know? My parents live in there, have done so for 10 years. They pay €1500, since they're not civil servants. Then get to pay their income tax to pay for these two guys to get luxury digs for cheap-as-chips :mad:

And I'll skip on the Préfets and various High-Level departmental/regional heads of Cabinets, with f*cking chauffeurs, cooks and domestics!!! All of it at the tax-payers' expense: some redistribution! So, what do you propose? They're not "patrons", they're Civil Servants FFS!

As for the "residence secondaire", I doubt very much the company pays for it. More like, the patron/boss pays for it out of his earnings - which is fair enough in my book: the bucks stops with him/her, so he/she gets paid most, and he/she spends his/her pay how they bloody well want to :mad:

For non-FR readers of the thread, I hope you're now getting a useful insight into FR psyche, when I stated earlier that you're simply not allowed to be successful in FR: if you're successful, God forbid, the usual consensus by FR onlookers is that you "must be abusing the system on way or the other", you're "scamming taxes", etc... In a few words: you're the bad guy, you owe everything to everyone else :mad:

lili wrote:

tu as eu connaissance des bénéfices nets de la sncf cette année?
non? fais le. le porte parole chargé d'annoncer la nouvelle était presque honteux de le faire. et je ne te parle même pas du résultat des compagnies pétrolières.

Don't focus so much on the one example I used to illustrate my point: there are litterally thousands of such "Avantages Corporatifs", in very many walks of professionnal life. The problem is not so much that they exist, but the cumulative, paralysis-inducing effect which they have as people who benefit from them are reluctant to let go of anything at all (even when equitable to do so for everyone, not just the 'bosses') and just want more.

lili wrote:

tiens, je vais juste d'entendre un truc rigolo à la radio. "les jeunes devront manifester jusqu'à leur retraite qu'ils n'auront jamais":D

Aujourd'hui, c'est drôle. Dans 20 ans... Tu les auras, tes mendiants innombrables.

lili

ambro25 wrote:

I

Aujourd'hui, c'est drôle. Dans 20 ans... Tu les auras, tes mendiants innombrables.

et tu crois que la bande de charlots qui sevie au gouvernement va nous épargner ça?
laisse moi rire. nous avons certainement la droite la plus pitoyable au monde!

ambro25

Peut-être, probablement pas... mais au moins ils essaient - which is the whole point of the CPE (and the thread).

If everytime the GVT tries something, mass strikes ensue and they back off, yet more mediation has to take place, then every such time the scope available for the kind of reforms needed to get the country out of the mire reduces further... until there just can't be any more reforms, which is just about where France is now.

Tell me something: imagine for a moment, that the CPE was introduced by a truly-popular politician (very-very-very-hypothetical, I know, but...). Now, would there be just as much discontent? Less? I don't think it would make one iota of difference. So shifting the blame on politicians is pointless - as I've posted before in this thread, everybody in France has to accept their share of responsibility in the current situation: if everyone realised for a moment that they can't have all the advantages to themselves without taking some from somewhere/someone else and were willing to speculate a little of their "qualité de vie" now to accumulate some more later, then you'd have a beginning of a solution. Like Hell that's gonna happen... :mad:

Pazaz 21

Very interesting insight into the french state of mind and the way they run things. The thing i'm amazed at is the fact that the government is powerless and that the people are ok with that. Who is going to take the french government, and therefore the french people, seriously if they cannot even conduct there own internal affairs without causing a riot every time. The implications in the UN Security Council, their power within the EU, has been totally undermined.:eek:

Surely in this day and age a civil disscussion can be held and a compromise reached. No matter how much i might protest, i am no more likely to stop the sun coming up in the morning then the protesters are to stopping globalization.

I'm sure Marie Antoinette liked the way it was too, but things didn't quite work out for her either.

I agree that if this cycle of the gvt trying to introduce necessary reform and the people taking to the streets because it dents their rosey hopes of a cushy civil service job, reform will become harder and harder to introduce, as the unions, and people of france, realise that they can stand up to the gvt and get away with it.

I mean what is the point of having a government or voting for someone, if you are not going to trust them to do the best thing for the country ? ( I am aware that Villepin was not voted into office but Chirac was and he is behing the CPE, well sort of !)

lili

Pazaz 21 wrote:

I mean what is the point of having a government or voting for someone, if you are not going to trust them to do the best thing for the country ? ( I am aware that Villepin was not voted into office but Chirac was and he is behing the CPE, well sort of !)

that is the prob. chirac haven't been elected on his economical program. the 2002 compaign was about security.

you know, i'm old enough for have seen several governments. and i must say that my life was better under socialism. look at the period 97-01. french economy was more than correct. since the right party is in power, it's the total mess. and it's not with this CPE that the things will change. what makes turning economy and entreprises is not the work contracts but how big is the "carnets de commandes". i must say that the "carnets de commandes" are poor since the right is in power. i don't even know who is our economy minister, that's say all!
they is nomore work! i put the fault on those foreigner financial groups which buy our entreprises and are more interested to make "plu-value" than to make turn the french economy.

Pazaz 21

lili wrote:

that is the prob. chirac haven't been elected on his economical program. the 2002 compaign was about security.

Those who sacrifice the economy for security, deserve neither !!:eek:

(I know i have taken poetic licence with the quote, but i think i works just as well this way)

lili

ambro25 wrote:

Peut-être, probablement pas... mais au moins ils essaient - which is the whole point of the CPE (and the thread).

:

mais tu n'as pas encore compris? t'es complètement déconnecté de la réalité. personne en veut de ce CPE. pourquoi? parce qu'il ne va pas solutionner le problème de l'emploi des jeunes. les jeunes qui sont en difficulté sont ceux qui sont défavorisés. défavorisés par discrimisation ou simplement parce qu'ils ont été en échec scolaire.
tu crois vraiment qu'un patron si il a le choix va prendre un de ces jeunes? mais voyons, soyons sérieux, il va prendre celui qui lui posera le moins de problème. nothing new under the sun. ils appellent ça "l'égalité des chances" tu parles!
alors tu vas me dire que le fait de pouvoir le balancer sans autre forme de procès l'incitera a être moins frileux. mais mon pauvre, on est dans une mouise pire que ça. il n'y a pas de travail! alors CPE ou pas...

tu sais ce qui pourrait éventuellement motiver un patron à embaucher? diviser les charges sociales et aussi le smic du temps qu'on y est:D
peut être que dans l'industrie les entreprises rapatriraient le matériel de production.
voilà, j'ai parlé comme une vraie libérale:D

lili

Pazaz 21 wrote:

Those who sacrifice the economy for security, deserve neither !!:eek:

(I know i have taken poetic licence with the quote, but i think i works just as well this way)

and i told the truth:)

Cillian1973

Which of these two options is better Unemployment or employment which may not be as secure as young french people would like? Clearly these protesters are foolish what is so horrible about this law when it could reduce the current soaring unemployment among the youth????

lili

Cillian1973 wrote:

Which of these two options is better Unemployment or employment which may not be as secure as young french people would like? Clearly these protesters are foolish what is so horrible about this law when it could reduce the current soaring unemployment among the youth????

it's what the actual government try to make believe. but it will change nothing. i see only more precarity with this law. what is strange is that even the MEDEF (association of the bosses) didn't ask for it.

The Corinthian

Cillian1973 wrote:

Which of these two options is better Unemployment or employment which may not be as secure as young french people would like? Clearly these protesters are foolish what is so horrible about this law when it could reduce the current soaring unemployment among the youth????

That is a simplistic viewpoint. Full employment is not necessarily a good thing - after all do you really want this kind of full employment?

I can understand where de Villepin is coming from, as the job of reforming the French economy is a rather daunting task and necessary to say the least. Unfortunately there are social issues with the law he is attempting to introduce, most notable of which is that it is discriminatory.

France, as with many of the economies in Europe, is in need of serious market reform. However, blindly following the Anglo-Saxon model is not necessarily the solution. After all, even the Anglo-Saxon model cannot ultimately compete with the cheap labour that the third World can provide.

lili

what is incredible with this government is that they made a law in 2004 which says that the "code du travail" (rights working code) can't be touched without a concertation with the syndicats first.
they didn't even respect their own laws:rolleyes:

ambro25

@ Corinthian - whilst I agree with your caveat, you cannot however denigrate the attempt that is (at least) being made. The viewpoint which you slammed as simplistic may be so, but the underlying point is prescient all the same: at the stage at which the FR socio-economic cul-de-sac is, I doubt very much that you may devise a suitable exit/repair strategy, taking account of all possible stakeholders, which won't break any eggs so to speak. With regard to the 26-year age thing, considering the current employment situation in FR, I suppose for anyone in that age bracket it's still relatively easy to land elsewhere. Past that (at any rate, past 35-ish), your chances are literally nil. So I see that as a safeguard measure rather than 'inverse' ageism.

For sure, the CPE should ideally be all-embracing (i.e. not restricted to sub-26 years old)

@ Lilli - you really should make your mind, as to whether you blame the government or the unions (union = Syndicat). The policies of the previous socialist governments, or rather their lack thereof where employment is concerned, have landed FR where it is. Blaming the "firefighters" (not faultless themselves, of course, but still) because they can't put the fire out since they were called to the disaster too late just won't do as an excuse. The time for looking for excuses is now long, long gone: for any current or near-future FR government, it's time to sh1t or get off the pot. In that respect, Villepin is doing good in my book.

Pazaz 21

So Chirac has bowed to pressure once again and scrapped the CPE. Big Surprise There !!!

What now ? The law will only be enforced on the very poor, which i suppose it was aimed at anyway, but won't they feel even more isolated and be-littled.

When the rich students riot they get what they want, but when the poor people do it, they are called criminals. Funny that !!

Oh well, au revoir monsieur Villepin !!!

Rockdolphin

ambro25 wrote:

It depends on what they trade, however: France providing armaments and 'heavy industry' (steel mills, power plants) against petrol for decades. Don't forget that trade between countries has much more to it than mere balancing of zeroes - there's a political and strategical dimension to it as well, and you'd be surprised just how much FR was doing with Iraq in the 70s/80s, and how little US was doing with Iraq at the same time (I was in Iraq in the late 80s, building American pre-fab hospitals with erection sub-contracted to a FR company).

I'm aware of the economic French interest in Iraq throughout the 70's and 80's and their desire to maintain a position of influence. I doubt also motivations for their stance on the recent Iraq war were totally alteristic. However economicaly the US is much more of an important trading partner than Iraq. Trading figures aside, licensing of modern technologies for instance would also make the USA in terms of trade relations a much more important nation than Iraq for France. The French have suffered and continue to suffer economicaly for their stance on the Iraq war and had no trade benefit as a result.

ambro25

Rockdolphin wrote:

I'm aware of the economic French interest in Iraq throughout the 70's and 80's and their desire to maintain a position of influence. I doubt also motivations for their stance on the recent Iraq war were totally altruistic. However economicaly the US is much more of an important trading partner than Iraq.

Not so, because as I have attempted to explain (obliquely, I concede), FR is and was always more bothered about securing alternative sources of petroleum (which is strategically just as important as just about anything else you care to mention, and has implications on everything) in non-US and non-USSR (at the time) zones, to 'do its own thing'. Trading with the US has always represented more in volume than with Iraq anyhow - but the FR governements have always been more concerned about petroleum provenance alternative to the US, so that US would have less say upon their economicla policies.

The FR-US love/hate thing, to be contrasted with the UK-US love thing, has always been down to the fact that FR doesn't like to be told what to do militarily or economically, and just doesn't subscribe to the US "World Cop" approach - because what's in it is always for the US, never for the other guys around the table - and so the US takes a dim view of 'non-subscribing' nations

Rockdolphin wrote:

Trading figures aside, licensing of modern technologies for instance would also make the USA in terms of trade relations a much more important nation than Iraq for France. The French have suffered and continue to suffer economicaly for their stance on the Iraq war and had no trade benefit as a result.

See this at this site. The site is that of the official FR governement for (public) commercial intelligence garnered by economical missions in each country wherein FR has an Embassy or a Consulate.

extract:

En 2004, les ventes françaises aux Etats-Unis étaient de 23 milliards Euros, contre 22,4 milliards Euros d’importations. L’excédent bilatéral français avec les Etats-Unis s’est contracté en 2004, à +644 millions Euros, contre +916 l’année précédente. Les ventes françaises sont en augmentation, reflétant notamment la vigueur de la croissance américaine. Les importations françaises depuis les Etats-Unis ont également augmenté, notamment sous l’effet du change favorable et d’une forte reprise des ventes américaines dans l’aéronautique.

" In 2004, FR trade with the US amounted to €23 bn, against €22,4 bn imports. The FR profit with the US has shrinked in 2004, to +€644 millions, from +€916 the previous year. FR sales are on the increase, particularly reflecting the strength of the US (NDT:economical) growth. Imports in FR from the US have also increased, notably due to the favourable exchange rate and a strong resurgence of US sales in the aeronautical field."

I think FR is doing just fine with the US. About as much as they want to do, tbh.

lili

ambro25 wrote:

@ Lilli - you really should make your mind, as to whether you blame the government or the unions (union = Syndicat). The policies of the previous socialist governments, or rather their lack thereof where employment is concerned, have landed FR where it is. Blaming the "firefighters" (not faultless themselves, of course, but still) because they can't put the fire out since they were called to the disaster too late just won't do as an excuse. The time for looking for excuses is now long, long gone: for any current or near-future FR government, it's time to sh1t or get off the pot. In that respect, Villepin is doing good in my book.

the policies of the previous socialist governments is guilty? that's your opinion, not mine. the economical situation wasn't the priority in 2002 (proof that the situation wasn't that bad) you know what conduct the frenchies to choose between chirac and le pen.
you left the country, i'm still here, maybe you should come back to see the reality. just look at what was the "croissance" of 97-2001. and look at how it is since 2003. i tell you, this government is uncompetant.
we have experimented the alternance since 25 years. the mess we are into has to be shared.
but i still say that our right party is the dumbest of the planet and villepin is above all of them. remember who gave to chirac the advice to "dissoudre l'assemblée" in 97? yes it was already him.

lili

Pazaz 21 wrote:

So Chirac has bowed to pressure once again and scrapped the CPE. Big Surprise There !!!

What now ? The law will only be enforced on the very poor, which i suppose it was aimed at anyway, but won't they feel even more isolated and be-littled.

When the rich students riot they get what they want, but when the poor people do it, they are called criminals. Funny that !!

Oh well, au revoir monsieur Villepin !!!

i think you didn't get the stuff. the rich students aren't concerned by the unemployment, daddy and his relationships are here to take care of it.
the real prob of unemployment is for the poor people, those which don't have access pass.
i didn't right now read the compromis, what is has been proposed, i just hear of it, seems good to me, inciting a boss to pick up a defavorised young, give to him formation and the counterpart for the boss is to be not taxed as much as he would be otherwise.

lili

ambro25 wrote:

The FR-US love/hate thing, to be contrasted with the UK-US love thing, has always been down to the fact that FR doesn't like to be told what to do militarily or economically, and just doesn't subscribe to the US "World Cop" approach - because what's in it is always for the US, never for the other guys around the table - and so the US takes a dim view of 'non-subscribing' nations

hehe, wait until sarkozy takes the power, he is a fervent admirator of US policies. he will be the little dog of american conservatives if they can be reelected:D

ambro25

lili wrote:

the policies of the previous socialist governments is guilty? that's your opinion, not mine. the economical situation wasn't the priority in 2002 (proof that the situation wasn't that bad) you know what conduct the frenchies to choose between chirac and le pen.

Look, Lili, I left in '94 because employment, the general economical performance and the economical outlook was already a sh1t-heap.

lili wrote:

you left the country, i'm still here, maybe you should come back to see the reality.

I don't need to. I have been religiously catching the 20 Heures on TV5, have been talking with my parents twice a week for years, and go visit at least twice a year.

My mother works for the CAF (Caisse d'Allocations Familiales = Social Service for Families), has been doing so for two decades or more.

In passing, something funny about that: the CAF is a Civil Service throughout France, except in some north-eastern FR départements (Moselle and Alsace). So whereas every other regional/departmental CAF has a yearly budget to manage according to Civil Service rules and regs and employees have a Civil Servant status, in the North East they are considered a private company which, though not-for-profit (they'd have a job, considering their task is to hand out subsidies/benefits ), has to be audited, have a 'proper' P&L and importantly, employees are not Civil Servants but private employees. However, the 'private' CAF performance indexes are at least a couple of orders of magnitude above those of their Civil Service counterparts... that telling you anything?

My dad has always been running his own SME, except for a bad bout of unemployment some years back (in his mid-50s, so don't you tell me about ageism and all that stuff about *reality*. I've seen it at the coal-face, and what a f*cking farce the Employment Services and the Civil Service were: they just about told him to go hang himself, so slim were his chances of *ever* finding employment again!).

So I'm priviledged enough, that I can get diametrically-opposed views at any moment in time about the 'situation': from my socialist Mum and from my capitalistic-cum-paternalistic (in the economical/company-running sense of the word) Dad.

lili wrote:

just look at what was the "croissance" of 97-2001. and look at how it is since 2003. i tell you, this government is uncompetant.

No - it just has the unfortune of being in power at the moment where everything that has contributed to the present situation over the years is entering a synergistic phase.

lili wrote:

i think you didn't get the stuff. the rich students aren't concerned by the unemployment, daddy and his relationships are here to take care of it.

That is true enough... well, let's say 'symptomatic enough'.

lili wrote:

the real prob of unemployment is for the poor people, those which don't have access pass.

But that's over-simplification (to paraphrase The Corinthian ).

Pazaz 21

lili wrote:

i think you didn't get the stuff. the rich students aren't concerned by the unemployment, daddy and his relationships are here to take care of it.
the real prob of unemployment is for the poor people, those which don't have access pass.
i didn't right now read the compromis, what is has been proposed, i just hear of it, seems good to me, inciting a boss to pick up a defavorised young, give to him formation and the counterpart for the boss is to be not taxed as much as he would be otherwise.

I never said the rich students where worried about unemployment, i think they are more worried about what impact the CPE would have on their cushy civil service jobs, if any, in the future. They don't care about the poor, why should they, their rich and their "daddy's and their relationships" will take care of them.

The compromise may be a good one, BUT IT IS STILL A COMPROMISE !!

mike65

De Villepin to resign?

Hope so, he got screwed over by his boss and he knows it. I imagine Nicolas Sarkozy is hugging himself with joy.

Mike.

lili

oh, ambro, you left france when the right party was at the power?:D
remember our dear balladur? haha.