Vive La Paralysis!

For the third time in three weeks, France is enjoying a national strike. Train conductors, garbage men, postal workers, the usual. (Unlucky travelers looking for up-to-date strike info should click here.) At issue this time around is a government proposal to chip away at the looming demographic time-bomb of a pension system by increasing the amount of time state employees must work before receiving full retirement benefits from 37.5 years to 40 years (same as the private sector). Teachers, who have some of the cushiest deals in the country, are threatening to cancel final exams later this week, after walking off and on the job since about April. Which means that students, who already have little chance of finding work, now don?t even have school to distract them. At least they can always go burn down a McDonald?s.

Comments

[Slippery Pete]

If Iran is the country Republicans would like to turn the US into, France is what we'd get if we let Democrats run the joint.

[Croesus]

Slippery Pete,

Industrial actions are the stuff of French national tradition - it has nothing to do with party affiliation. Furthermore, there is greater freedom to strike in France than there is in the US, so people strike more. Anyway, despite this tradition (or maybe because of it), French workers remain some of the most productive on the planet per hour, and France remains in the top five GDP wise.

What's humorous is that the strikes have only strengthened Raffarin's hand; all signs point to a collapse of these strikes, as the public in general tolerates them less and less.

[Croesus]

June 10 (Bloomberg) -- French transport workers disrupted air, rail and subway services in their third nationwide strike in a month, timed to coincide with a parliamentary debate on changes to state pensions, amid signs that the movement is weakening.

Only 28.2 percent of railroad staff were taking part in today's stoppage at 11 a.m. Paris time, against 41.1 percent at the same time a week ago, the state-owned Societe Nationale des Chemins de Fer rail company said in a faxed statement.

In Paris, five of 14 metro lines were running normally; the worst-affected was operating one train out of 10, the city's RATP transport authority said on its Web site.

``No reform would mean the collapse of our pension system from 2006,'' French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said in response to a question in the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament. ``Courage means taking action.''

France, like Germany and Austria, wants to overhaul pension financing to curb widening budget deficits. Workers would have to pay more to get full pensions, or work longer. Austria has had its biggest labor walkout since World War II.

[RS]

Frontpagemag.com has an interesting 2-part interview with some French "intellectuals" (for lack of a better term) about contemporary state of affairs in France.

**This is in no way an endorsement of frontpagemag.com - they do have some interesting writers from time to time, but a lot of assholes too.

[Croesus]

From Newsday:

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-france-strikes,0,2390769.story?coll=ny-nationworld-headlines

To pay for the plan, the government has proposed to phase in an increase in the number of years people must work to collect full retirement benefits. The number of years for all workers would rise to 41 by 2012, and to 42 by 2020.

At parliament, Raffarin gave an impassioned defense of the proposal, urging people not to leave the system a disaster for their children.

"To those who are afraid, to those who have fears, I say that our reform is a reform of national security," Raffarin said.

The speech brought center-right backers to their feet, and some burst into singing the French national anthem. The leftist opposition stayed seated, with some singing the communist hymn.

Allons enfants de la patrie, Le jour de gloire est arriv?! Contre nous, de la tyrannie, L'?tendard sanglant est lev?!

Entendez vous dans les campagnes / Mugir ces f?roces soldats? Ils viennent jusque dans nos bras / Egorger vos fils, vos compagnes.

Aux armes, citoyens! Formez vos bataillons!Marchons! Marchons! Qu'un sang impur / Abreuve nos sillons! Amour sacr? de la patrie, Conduis, soutiens nos bras vengeurs! Libert?, Libert? ch?rie, combats avec les d?fenseurs!

Sous nos drapeaux, que la victoire / Accoure ? tes m?les accents! Que tes ennemis expirants / Voient ton triomphe et notre gloire!

[Croesus]

RS,

Let me guess, their conclusion is that all Frenchmen are evil. 🙂

[Anonymous]

http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2003/06/Frenchbreakdown.shtml
http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2003/06/AnotherletterfromFrance.shtml
http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2003/06/Toleratingtheintolerable.shtml
http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2003/06/AthirdletterfromFrance.shtml

[Croesus]

Anon @ 05:35,

In another words, let's bash the frogs.

This is typical of the discourse found in these links: "The French have no understanding, direct or intuitive, of macroeconomics." As compared to whom?

If I were to write "Blacks have no understanding, direct or intuitive, of macroeconomics" I would be labelled a racist - the hatred of France is essentially along similar lines.

[jacob]

the economist this week had an interesting article about how unions are basically irrelevant, and this stuff (also in austria & germany) are just thgeir death rattle. at least thats what i got from it.

[jacob]

the economist this week had an interesting article about how unions are basically irrelevant, and this stuff (also in austria & germany) are just their death rattle. at least thats what i got from it.

[RS]

I should add I was referring to Le Monde, Liberation, and Le Figaro as these are the papers I read. Perhaps there is more diverse debate in other wide circulation newspapers I'm not familiar with. But I doubt it.

[Croesus]

RS,

Well, I looked on FrontPage and found nothing. Its sort of funny, people have been predicting France's imminent collapse since the 1950s (hell, right after WWII, France was supposed to be relegated to the role of what we call now a third world nation by many commentators if you can believe that); somehow or another, France keeps on chugging along. In my mind, this doom and gloom non-sense is about as rational as environmentalists who claim that humanity will cease to exist w/o Kyoto.

[Croesus]

RS,

Le Figaro and Le Monde are often night and day in what they report and how the report it. As far as I can tell, being a Franco-American, American political thought and the like are just as suffocated as French political thought.

[RS]

http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=8289

[jacob]

je suis desolee about the double entry. heres the link http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1826029

[Croesus]

"Throughout the entire 20th century, the French seemed to spend most of their time desperately craving being crushed by some kind of foreign totalitarian power."

Yes, that's why millions of Frencmen died in WWI, why France keeps a nuclear arsenal to this day, and why Frenchmen universally despised the occupation (whether they supported Vichy or not) during WWII. During WWIII, Frenchmen flooded to the south of France, often went to Vichy rallies just to sing the national anthem, etc. What utter ahistorical non-sense.

"But now the French have cleverly figured it all out: to be taken over by Islam from within."

Yes, that's why Arabs are so popular in France. 🙂

"French security forces took it upon themselves to round up and hand over 61,000 Jews to the Nazis -- without even a request from the Nazis to do so. Those Jews ended up in Auschwitz, Dachau and Treblinka."

And hundreds of thousands of Jews were saved by Frenchmen, who in aggregate terms and per capita saved more Jews from the Nazis than any other nation in occupied Europe.

This is blatant France bashing.

[RS]

Croesus - As far as foreign policy goes, I doubt you'll find much difference between any of the French newspapers. And I think the scarcity of diversity of opinion is appalling - I don't think US papers are great but I am able to read a wider spectrum of opinions, as loony or mundane as they may be.
What doesn't get printed is the problem - as shown by the complete silence concerning anti-semitic acts in France until about a year ago and the refusal to say, hey, look at what's happening in the banlieu, this ain't cool.
An example of what journalists get away with is in Le Nouvel Observateur this week: J. Julliard bases his entire opinion piece on the two Guardian quotes of Wolfowitz and Powell and which the Guardian had to retract and apologize for. Do you think Le Nouvel Obs will retract or correct these comments? Hell no. Ca se fait pas.

[Croesus]

RS,

There is about as much diversity of opinion in the US media as there is in the French media.

As far as anti-semetic attacks, I've been reading about them for years now, and the need to crack-down on them. I can recall as early as 1985 reading about such in Le Figaro. And do you realize how much the government spends every year protecting Jewish cementaries and the like? Lots.

[SM]

OK gentlemen - i've sacrificed some time to go read frontpagemag and some of the denbeste links.
Here is a summary - frontpage is worried that France might become a muslim country sometime in the near future. Also they haven't recovered from the shock of losing great power status, are communists pining for the 60's, are isolated whithin Europe etc.
And RS - you are right. FPM is one weird mag.
On to denbeste - More of the same. Major concern - the French welfare state is not viable in any way, and there will be some sort of explosion soon. There is also a smattering of French colonial history there to firm up the overall theme of malaise. Also, did you know that France has a muslim problem ? I get the feeling that this guy is a Harry Turtedove fan.

You are all welcome.

Question - Is'nt Jean-Francois Revel the old cold warrior from the eightees ? If so, on the basis of his cold war predictions & based on his currrent alarm i predict that the west is headed for a smashing victory against the evildoers.

[Croesus]

SM,

What's odd is that the Communist Party in France has never been so anemic, arabs are not loved in France (and there is increasing pressure to force them acculturate and to stop immigration also), and the pension system gets reformed much like SSI gets reformed in the US (such reform does not bring on calls that US society is about to collapse). One wonders why if French society and culture is on the brink of collapse that we host Cannes, still are important in the fashion industry and the arts, etc. As I wrote earlier, France has been about to collapse since the 1950s according to one doom and gloomer or another. Somehow I think these predictions are more of a sign that a meme is at work here more than anything.

[SM]

"One wonders why if French society and culture is on the brink of collapse that we host Cannes, still are important in the fashion industry and the arts, etc."

Lets not forget french graphic novels.

[Croesus]

SM,

Oui. 🙂

[RS]

Croesus - I for one don't think France is on the brink of collapse & one of the main reasons is little by little people are waking up. In terms of anti-americanism and anti-reformism, etc. they have reached rock bottom, which might be healthy in the long wrong if it's handled properly. The main papers even admit that pension reform is inevitable and many profs are starting to (timidly, and I don't blame them) challenge the union. There's a young woman - sorry, can't remember her name - leading counter protests who argues that yes, they have a right to strike, but we also have a right to go to work or class without being threatened or even attacked. So I think there has been too much silence & too much homogeneous thought over the years, but there just might be a change coming slowly - you see it with the head of SOS Racisme denouncing the islamo thugs who have taken control of the banlieus and criticizing those who would defend them.

[Croesus]

"The main papers even admit that pension reform is inevitable..."

Le Figaro has been calling for pension reform for years. Let me put this into perspective - how long did it take for welfare reform to occur in the US? Any institution which has deep historical, etc. roots, takes time to change, etc. Why everyone thinks that this is only true in France baffles me.

As far as anti-semitism is concerned, I've been to rallies against such starting in 1994. But yes, all Frenchmen are automatons, we can't think for ourselves, we are anti-semites, etc. Sort of like all Americans are racists, imperialist swine. 🙂

[RS]

One more thing: a rising attraction to violence by radicals from Le Front National and Lutte Ouvriere et al plus the rise of Islamofascists in the banlieus add up to a lot of people so things definitely won't be easy in the coming years so that's why I think more diverse debate needs to start now so they can work shit out (personal note: preferably before my wife decides we should move back or we retire la bas, whichever comes first)

[Croesus]

RS,

You're going to have to demonstrate how the National Front is prompting violence, etc.

[Croesus]

RS,

BTW, if you don't think that there is criticism of Le Monde, for example, read Pierre P?an and Philippe Cohen's "La face cach?e du Monde."

[RS]

I'm not going to search for statistics for you, but there have been enough documented violent incidents involving the extreme left and right to raise a few eyebrows.
And the recent strikes have alarmed people with a higher degree of violence than in the past.
Now let me go home - although it has been nice getting paid overtime for this little exchange.

[Croesus]

RS,

I am not forcing you to stay. However, anecdotal evidence is just that, anecdotal evidence. Remember a few years ago when there was supposed to be an epidemic of church burnings in the US? Did that turn out to be the case? No.

[Croesus]

BTW, the French education will take care of itself. Already Catholic & other private schools make up 20% of the school-age population, and this number expands by almost 1% a year right now.

[Douglas Fletcher]

How are they going for "force Arabs to acculturate?" Make them open quickie marts?

[Demosthenes]

Croesus said, "As far as I can tell ... American political thought and the like are just as suffocated as French political thought."

If I had said, "Mexican political thought and the like are just as suffocated as Black political thought," I'd be labeled a racist.

[Anonymous]

Beating the French is easy. It's getting them to admit the fact that's impossible.

[joe]

Y'know, French bashing used to be such a harmless, lighthearted, happy thing - like on the Simpsons or Married With Children. I don't like this mean, angry, 21st century variety.

[Croesus]

"France is more guilty than the rest when it comes to whining and bitching about their lost power."

Can you please give me some examples of such? In my mind, its Americans who have the obsession about the French presence in the world, and not the other way around. I rarely (if ever) see laments about the nature of France's place in the world in France. Of course the question remains, how much power has France actually lost? It still remains one of the few countries on the planet that can actually pull off things like rescuing a contingent of foreigners in Liberia, for example.

"Then they have technical trade restrictions (thompson electronics???) to keep stuff out."

This a bit like the pot calling the kettle black - protectionism is hardly a French or European monopoly.

"Look at the 1972 UK joining the EC and the French objections to that." Many of the French government's predictions about how the British would be a thorn in the side of EC integretation were proven to be true.

"Look at the French testing in the South Pacific and not giving one bloody loo about world opinion, but citing world opinion in the US-UK war in Iraq." This is known as an "ad hominem tu quoque."

Now, regarding the testing, it was done so as to phase-out testing altogether. The government determined that it needed to do some base-line numbers to develop future weapons, without having to test those weapons - which is why the testing occurred in 1996. BTW, Chirac, etc. never to my knowledge claimed that their position rested on the objection of the world (that would be an argument from popularity, and fallacious), though they may have pointed out that much of the world was against the US invasion.

"Look at the restrictions on language in public discourse." What restrictions? Its not as if the gendamerie is arresting people for using English words. Now, the law does mandate that French webpages use at least in part the French language, that a certain % of advertising be in French, etc. Anyway, I'm fairly curious what you are referring to - BTW, is not true in the US that English is mandated in a number of fields (education for example, government documents, etc.), at least at the state level, and that this is popular with many Americans?

BTW, did you know that there is complete liberty of cryptography in France? Documents:

http://www.internet.gouv.fr/francais/textesref/cisi190199/decis1.htm ; http://www.internet.gouv.fr/francais/textesref/cisi190199/decis2.htm

[mouchon]

Hi all,

let me clear a few points out for you:

First of all the TEACHERS are not demonstrating against the retirement reform. They are demonstrating against the "decentralisation" reform, which basically proposes to shift the fincancial weight of the educational system to the regions. This is seen as "liberalisation" and it is feared that this will put in peril the core values of the systems (namely : ?galit?, education pour tous, etc.), which mean a lot to the teachers.

The OTHERS are demonstrating against the reform of the retirement system.
I do agree with however said this was the "rattle of death" of the unions. There are some strong signs, such as CFDT-leader Chereque (CFDT is an important union) signing a agreement with the govt., and now his union members are demonstrating against the govt. and their union leader.
Some people (such as the counter-protests mentionned) fell the unions are fighting to keep the unfair advantages of all state employees: ie retirement 2,5 years earlier, amongst others.

It seems the govt., with its strong majority and Chirac's 80%-election last year, was over-confident, and got everybody in the streets. What will happen (what is happening), is that it will back-down on the education and stay strong on the retirement.
Which is, in my center-left expat opinion, globally a good thing (for both issues).

Concerning the general malaise (violence problems in the banlieues, Front National stronger than ever, etc.), the French case is difficult to understand. Last year there was a lot of media agitation around "insecurity", wich ended with Le Pen in the 2nd round of the presidential election and the following big "modibilisation r?publicaine".
(Finally the govt's solution was, basically, more cops.)

Then people started admitting that life in France isn't that bad at all, and the debate was buried again, also by the media, except a few articles concerning collective rapes (in the banlieues). The "ni putes ni soumises" march toured France (these were girls protesting against their life in the banlieues). But I agree that the problem is mainly ignored, there is no debate, and that is a problem.

Concerning the islamo-thugs, let me point out that, from my experience, the "thugs" should be stressed, since some of these are not arabs but good old franco-francais boys. This is defenitely, in my view, a SOCIAL problem, not a religious one.

To get back to the unions, other movements have turned very violent, in particular the left-extremists, anarchists and so on (I hear less about right-extremists violence, but I don't know if its a media bias or less violence). In Geneva last week-end protests againts the G8 degenerated violently, and the protestors actually wanted that to happen. The pacifist protestors where somewhere else not demonstrating but discussing. I see this as a radicalisation of the extreme-left, as it is nearing its doom.

The extreme right (Le Pen) is getting benefit from the attitude of the mainstream political class, as a lot of us believe there is too much of a gap between the people (la France d'en bas) and the govt (la France d'en haut), and this applies to both left (PS) and right-wing (UMP) parties.
I think the strong mobilisation at the moment can be also seen as protests against this state of things, as was the massive demonstration againt Le Pen last year (and nothing has changed since then).

To sum it all up, I'd say there is a mixture of apathy (people are tired of politics) and panic (where is France going to?) Did you say French contradiction ? 😉

[Madog]

Check out the Economist article on the subject, it's pretty interesting:
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1826029

Surprisingly, France has lower union membership thant the US, it look like they're just very active and well organized.

On a personal note - Unions suck. I haven't gotten a raise in two years because they're sitting in negotiations with my employer for the past year and half.

[joe]

Some twit on TCS Europe wrote a column on this topic titled - seriously - "Millions of Terroristes." Yeah, I'd say that encountering heavy traffic or having your kid stay home from school for a few days is pretty much the same as being on the 95th floor on September 11.

The funny thing is, when I posted a comment to that effect, some right wing Frenchman responded by calling me a cowboy.

He he.

[david f]

hey mouchon!

ca va? i was hoping that you'd chime in here, too!

there may be elements of france or america or of upper mongumbia that people don't like. yadda yadda yadda

we can disagree and argue about foreign policy, domestic policy, the problems of a pluralistic state, the problems of government intervention, and even experiences at work with individuals from both sides of the pond.

what it boils down to is that i really doubt that most americans who are bitching and whining about france have clue number one about france. they hear jokes on the simpsons, hear anecdotes, and now are told by dubyah to hate france. so they do.

then they boycott lancome, frenches mustard, and other non-french products because that asshole bill o.r. tells 'em too. (he fixed the list, i've been told)

this sophmoic lameness is getting to be a bit much. remember what pj o rourke notes: prejudice is a sign of lazyness, because once you get to know the individual, there are ample reasons to hate him/her. simply reaching for the first stereotype is lazy (poorly paraphrased, sorry!)

happy wednesday all!
drf

[tonio-k]

Basically as long as the European Union is more concerned with trying to be the hegemon on this planet, they're screwing up their futures. france is more guilty than the rest when it comes to whining and bitching about their lost power. then they go and fight for farm subsidies that really screws over their former colonies. then they have technical trade restrictions (thompson electronics???) to keep stuff out. look at the 1972 UK joining the EC and the french objections to that. look at the official protest the french made about waterloo station in late 1994 (while they have stalingrad station). look at the french testing in the south pacific and not giving one bloody loo about world opinion, but citing world opinion in the US-UK war in iraq. look at the international sports organizations -- all in french (FIBA, FIFA, FINA). look at the restrictions on language in public discourse. it goes on and on.

[Lowther Tori]

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