Victory for French Students

Bowing to insurmountable pressure from France's students and labor unions, President Jacques Chirac has repealed the CPE law.

The students won because they put together an extraordinary protest movement. I can tell you that witnessing hundreds of thousands of youth from all different ethnic and class backgrounds marching together, chanting in unison, for seven straight hours, was one of the most remarkable experiences of my life. I vividly remember, around the sixth hour of the protest, students chanting "We are not tired! We are not tired!"

The students demanded a total repeal of the law, they vowed to continue protesting until their demands were met, and they won. Victor Vidilles, one of the central architects of the movement, told me, "They are trying to kill the movement. But it's not possible."

Before I left for Paris, I asked whether or not these students should be considered progressive, and I've made up my mind: of course they should. We've been made to believe that any tinkering with free markets will spell doom for civilization, but let's look at the facts. Despite its incredible protections for workers, France is the world's fifth largest economy. Despite its lifetime employment laws, 35-hour work weeks, and 8-week vacations, France has the highest worker productivity in the world.

Yes, France has a real and serious unemployment problem, which needs to be dealth with. But as Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research points out, "there are a number of countries with high levels of labor market protections and low levels of unemployment: Austria (5.2 percent), Denmark (4.4 percent), Ireland (4.3 percent), the Netherlands (4.6 percent), and Norway (4.5 percent)." So the solution to dealing with unemployment isn't necessarily to weaken labor market protections (Weisbrot suggests that a core cause of French and overall EU unemployment is related to the fact that the European Central Bank has kept interest rates too high).

The mainstream media-- which seems to have bought, hook, line and sinker, the values of free market fundamentalism-- has labelled these students reactionaries, protectors of an outmoded status quo, conservatives. These students are anything but conservative; they are visionaries. They are struggling to redefine the globalized world. They refuse to inherit a society of savage capitalism in which worker's rights are constantly undermined in the name of efficiency.

They have won the first major victory in what I believe is the great moral struggle of my generation: taming global capitalism.

These students are not delusional. They believe in markets and support globalization and trade. They simply refuse to accept that in order for capitalism to function in society, it must be totally unregulated, unchecked, and unharnessed. And guess what, they are inheriting the future. We are inheriting the future. Like the French students, we cannot allow our goverments to mold our futures without consulting us at all. It's our future, and we must play a role in defining it.

The French students showed us that this is possible.

Comments (11)

1. Well, the French don't seem to have gotten the knack that the other European countries have. I wish the students luck with their 23% unemployment and their being subject to a constant string of short-term contracts because employers won't hire people on a permanent bases.

   Just out of curiousity, if ECB interest rates are to blame, why haven't they effect the other countries you mention?

   Posted by brunowe at 04/10/2006 @ 10:36am

2. Well, atleast THIS time....

   they weren't surrendering to the Germans...but to their own college students!

   hehe

   Posted by Mask at 04/10/2006 @ 11:12am

3. Mask: nice francophobic comment.. I'm glad I don't only refer to Americans in terms of "indian killers" or something.

   Concerning the death of the CPE, I think that for the French government it will be difficult to engage any reforms from now on. If the Left wins the presidential elections next year, they might be able to reform the country more easily (with the unions, this time). http://francoamericanviews.blogspot.com/

   Posted by clemxf at 04/10/2006 @ 12:54pm

4. Posted by CLEMXF 04/10/2006 @ 12:54am | ignore this person

   Sorry, CLEM....I forgot the racial trait of humorlessness amongst the French.

   Needless to say, amongst those of us more libertarian, the sight of the "European social democratic paradise" being rioted by a bunch of spoiled brats, who are more willing to risk their entire country's economic future, than be laid off from their "guarenteed" job at the Peugeot Citroën factory....

   means that the next time one of OUR guys says "We should do things like they do in France"...we have a PRETTY good rejoinder.

   Posted by Mask at 04/10/2006 @ 1:40pm

5. Hello Mask

   Just a gentle reminder that people living in a particular country cannot necessarily be accused of displaying the "racial trait"s of that country. Strictly from the terminology point of view, of course, they could be accused of "national traits". Perhaps certain Americans are unable to appreciate the French due to their mutually inexplicable national traits. But "racial" traits is, of course, meaningless in this context. So, Mask, go gently forward when bashing, but your bludgeon should at least be toughened correctly.

   Posted by pointofview at 04/10/2006 @ 2:06pm

6. Spoken like a person who has never owned a business or considered hiring a new employee. It's impractical and unfair to force employers to hire a person for life. It's worse than marriage! What if that person is lazy? What if they don't get along with their co-workers? What if they are incompetent? Still the business should be forced to keep them on? I am a progressive and believe in workers' rights, but I also believe that business owners are people, too, and they have rights as well. If the government wishes to hire workers for life, that's one thing. To expect the same of business, which must compete both locally and globally, is to expect the kind of situation France now experiences. Twenty-five percent unemployment. It's quite ridiculous if you think about it from all sides. The bill was a fair compromise. The students have dealt themselves a blow. The guarantee of lifetime employment is no guarantee at all if one cannot secure a job in the first place.

   Posted by finaleyes at 04/10/2006 @ 2:42pm

7. Felicitations! Mask, you and LVLIBERTY1 must've OD'd on your Freedom Fries at McD's! Without the French, there would be no United States. Let's acknowledge that we have done more good for each other's countries than bad, and that we both have atrocious records in treatment of indigenous peoples, the poor and colonials. We could accomplish so much if each side would go on an "eat your ego" binge. But this French-Irish-English-German American doesn't expect that to happen "until pigs fly." (Mmm, my inner Brit is expressing herself.) And don't forget that when their Monarchy was flushing the country down the 'loo, they started the Revolution that inspired ours. Moi, je suis francaise, aussi. Ommm... Let clearer heads prevail. (That's an omelette to you, Mask and Lv!)

   Posted by LynnZTV at 04/10/2006 @ 5:41pm

8. The extent to which "free-market" ideology has taken over the American mind is illustrated not only by mainstream media coverage of French events, but by the response from readers of even a progressive periodical like the Nation.

   "Business owners are people too." Give me a break! Just as in the Orwellian terminology of neoliberalism "reform" has come to mean making things worse for the majority, now the few with enough capital to invest profitably are seen as victims, while the many who,lacking capital, must sell themselves to its owners are portrayed as privileged!

   I also think that this stuff about French workers "being guaranteed their jobs for life" is more corporate media spin. What French law stipulates, as I understand it, is that, after a three-month probationary period, employers who want to fire workers must give a clear written reason, and that, if the worker disagrees, he is entitled to a hearing. I also understand that the bodies that judge these things in France don't always automatically uphold the employer (unlike most American arbitrators, even in union shops). Is this so wildly unreasonable? Do you, Monsieur put-upon, downtrodden capitalist, think it your inalienable right to fire someone simply because you say s/he is lazy or cantenkerous, without having to substantiate these accusations? Talk about entitlements!And what about those who are fired for not kissing the boss's ass enthusiastically enough, or being less than delighted about the prospect of working 60 to 80 hours a week, or for union organizing? Have you ever heard of employees who are fired for these reasons? Or of employers who, not wanting to give their real reasons, say instead that the fired employee is lazy, cantankerous, etc.?

   On another aspect of the "evenements": Why does it never seem to cross anyone's mind, not even in France, that one answer to youth unemployment might be the creation of large-scale public works, like Roosevelt's WPA? Has the French left too been subtly infiltrated by the neoliberal notion that only that is possible which is congenial to the owning class?

   Posted by turb at 04/10/2006 @ 5:53pm

9. TURB: Oui, d'accord. Imagine a combination of American/French innovation and attitude applied to our energy policies. OK, it's great dark comedy material, but it also offers great possibility. We could employ people on BOTH continents behind that kind of youth work initiative. We need to keep putting this progressive solution out there. abientot, Lynnztv@earthlink.net

   Posted by LynnZTV at 04/10/2006 @ 7:43pm

10. they started the Revolution that inspired ours.

    Posted by LYNNZTV 04/10/2006 @ 5:41pm | ignore this person

    Check your dates....1775 for us...and 1789 for them.

    Posted by Mask at 04/10/2006 @ 10:05pm

11. TURB: C'est ne pas Monsieur Put-Upon Downtrodden Capitalist. C'est Madame. I am self-employed now, because I can no longer afford to hire employees. But at one point I employed 10 people. I guarantee you that they were better paid with better benefits and more time off than I had. I finally gave up wanting to own a business because the responsibility for others' lives was too great. Somehow the model of "businessman" always applies to men and always applies to takers. Try to broaden the scope a little.

    Posted by finaleyes at 04/10/2006 @ 10:49pm