Senate Member
Posts: 6,020 
March 24th, 2006, 03:21 AM
The Times March 24, 2006
Protests erupt into firebombings
From Charles Bremner in Paris
YOUTHS fought police and set fire to cars yesterday in violent incidents in the heart of the Paris Left Bank, after up to 300,000 university and secondary-school students demonstrated across France in the latest round of protests against a new youth employment law.
The violence, involving youths from outside the demonstration, erupted at the end of a day in which Dominique de Villepin, the Prime Minister, made a gesture towards protesters and agreed to negotiate with labour unions.
Dozens of young people, many wearing masks or hoods, overturned cars, smashed shop windows and robbed student demonstrators of clothes and mobile phones around the Esplanade des Invalides, in the ministry district near the Seine. Riot police fired tear gas to disperse them.
At least 60 people were injured in the clashes, 27 of them police officers. One demonstrator was taken to hospital after suffering blows to the head.
Police said that 420 people were arrested across the country, including 141 in Paris, in fighting that student organisers said had nothing to do with their demonstration.
The protests that have filled the streets for the past three weeks have often been disrupted by so-called casseurs — radical political groups and gangs of youths from suburban housing estates intent on causing trouble.
With little sign of the youth revolt abating, M de Villepin yielded on his job law, which seeks to relieve the 23 per cent unemployment rate for people younger than 26 by making it easier for employers to hire and fire.
Trade unions, which have called for a day of national strikes next Tuesday, accepted M de Villepin’s offer for talks at which he promised to put everything on the table. The Prime Minister had previously refused to water down the law. His intransigence incited the students who want the same generous job protection that their parents have enjoyed.
Student leaders did not immediately accept M de Villepin’s offer, which he made after President Chirac was reported to have ordered him to give ground.
Protests over the measure have disrupted three quarters of the country’s 84 universities. Gilles de Robien, the Education Minister, said yesterday that summer-term exams could be postponed until the autumn.
The Government is worried that the increasingly violent student demonstrations could fan new unrest in the poor outer urban districts, which saw widespread rioting last autumn
thetimesonline.co.uk
The Times March 24, 2006
Protests erupt into firebombings
From Charles Bremner in Paris
YOUTHS fought police and set fire to cars yesterday in violent incidents in the heart of the Paris Left Bank, after up to 300,000 university and secondary-school students demonstrated across France in the latest round of protests against a new youth employment law.
The violence, involving youths from outside the demonstration, erupted at the end of a day in which Dominique de Villepin, the Prime Minister, made a gesture towards protesters and agreed to negotiate with labour unions.
Dozens of young people, many wearing masks or hoods, overturned cars, smashed shop windows and robbed student demonstrators of clothes and mobile phones around the Esplanade des Invalides, in the ministry district near the Seine. Riot police fired tear gas to disperse them.
At least 60 people were injured in the clashes, 27 of them police officers. One demonstrator was taken to hospital after suffering blows to the head.
Police said that 420 people were arrested across the country, including 141 in Paris, in fighting that student organisers said had nothing to do with their demonstration.
The protests that have filled the streets for the past three weeks have often been disrupted by so-called casseurs — radical political groups and gangs of youths from suburban housing estates intent on causing trouble.
With little sign of the youth revolt abating, M de Villepin yielded on his job law, which seeks to relieve the 23 per cent unemployment rate for people younger than 26 by making it easier for employers to hire and fire.
Trade unions, which have called for a day of national strikes next Tuesday, accepted M de Villepin’s offer for talks at which he promised to put everything on the table. The Prime Minister had previously refused to water down the law. His intransigence incited the students who want the same generous job protection that their parents have enjoyed.
Student leaders did not immediately accept M de Villepin’s offer, which he made after President Chirac was reported to have ordered him to give ground.
Protests over the measure have disrupted three quarters of the country’s 84 universities. Gilles de Robien, the Education Minister, said yesterday that summer-term exams could be postponed until the autumn.
The Government is worried that the increasingly violent student demonstrations could fan new unrest in the poor outer urban districts, which saw widespread rioting last autumn
thetimesonline.co.uk
Super Genius
Posts: 1,239
Location: Edmonton
Location: Edmonton
March 24th, 2006, 11:01 AM
I will never understand the logic of smashing things in your own city. What does it gain you? Nothing, you're in essence a moron. What we in the West should start doing with long-haired greasy rioters who like to pelt police with stones and molotavs, smash shops and overturn cars, and generally just run amock, is take the Asian approach. Get a few hundred riot police, and let them go nuts on the wankers. I mean, none of this Western restraint we see the police use, let the cops just flip out and pummel the protesters. If a few social f.uck-wads go down bleeding profusely, the crowd will disperse. Then again that's just my view on how to control the social degenerates of our society.
I will never understand the logic of smashing things in your own city. What does it gain you? Nothing, you're in essence a moron. What we in the West should start doing with long-haired greasy rioters who like to pelt police with stones and molotavs, smash shops and overturn cars, and generally just run amock, is take the Asian approach. Get a few hundred riot police, and let them go nuts on the wankers. I mean, none of this Western restraint we see the police use, let the cops just flip out and pummel the protesters. If a few social f.uck-wads go down bleeding profusely, the crowd will disperse. Then again that's just my view on how to control the social degenerates of our society.
Steven Hawking's Tutor
Posts: 4,995
Location: Florida, Hurricane Central
Location: Florida, Hurricane Central
March 24th, 2006, 11:05 AM
Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...741.html?sub=AR
French Take to the Streets to Preserve Their Economic Fantasy
By Steven Pearlstein
Wednesday, March 22, 2006; Page D01
Ah, springtime in Paris.
The sight of riot police outside the Sorbonne.
Street demonstrations against a French law giving employers more flexibility when hiring workers got a little out of hand in Paris yesterday.
The smell of tear gas wafting along the Seine.
The sweet sounds of hypocrisy floating from the National Assembly and the Elysee Palace.
And, next Tuesday, a national strike, perfectly timed to create a four-day weekend.
What inspired this season's revolutionary festivities is a radical new law that would give employers up to two years before deciding whether to give new young employees the kind of lifetime job security conferred by French law.
To those of you brainwashed by Anglo-American market capitalism, this might appear like the sort of labor market flexibility they babble on about at meetings like this week's European summit -- the kind that might actually entice a French company to create a new job.
But when viewed through the dark prism of the French imagination, these aren't real jobs -- they're "garbage jobs" and "slave contracts" meant to undermine the birthright of all Frenchmen to be shielded from all economic risk. Give in on this, and who knows what could go next? The 35-hour workweek? The six weeks of paid vacation? State-mandated profit sharing? Retirement at age 60?
What's so galling about the French is that, in the name of equality and solidarity, they are well on their way to creating not only one of the least vibrant economies in the industrialized world, but also one of the least equitable.
The "insiders" of this economy consist of a shrinking pool of older, middle-class workers who enjoy the full panoply of worker protections. Most of them are in the public sector or heavily regulated private industries, with the rest in a dwindling number of competitive private firms.
And then there are the "outsiders." This growing pool includes the unemployed young men of the mostly immigrant suburbs who went on a rampage last year, throwing rocks and burning cars. But it also includes the children of "insiders," who tend to hang around the university until they are 24 or 25, then drift between unpaid internships, temp jobs and welfare for another five years before finally getting "inside."
You'd think that, with all that time they spend chatting away in cafes, these young "outsiders" would have figured out by now that this system, which protects and cossets the "insiders" at all costs, is sucking the innovation and vitality from the economy. But rather than supporting the reforms that might generate more jobs and more income, the outsiders have bought into the nostalgic fantasy of a France that once was, but can never be again, making common cause with the very "insiders" whose selfishness and pigheaded socialism have left them out in the cold.
That said, you can hardly blame the kids for being confused about their economic predicament.
After all, the supposedly center-right government that pushed through the new youth-employment contract is the same government that adamantly refused to give up subsidies for farmers, stepped in to prevent foreign takeovers of French companies and, just last week, demanded that Apple iPods accept music downloads from iTunes competitors (read: French competitors). But having declared, in effect, that markets cannot be trusted to generate socially and politically acceptable outcomes, the same government is now shocked to find that it doesn't have much credibility when it asks workers to trust markets when it comes to the terms of their employment.
This sort of calculated hypocrisy among the French political elite, which likes to "talk left, act right," has now completely undermined support for market capitalism. A telling poll released in January by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland found that only 36 percent of French respondents felt that "the free enterprise system and free market economy" is the best system. That's the lowest response from any of the 22 countries polled and compares with 59 percent in Italy, 65 percent in Germany, 66 percent in Britain and 71 percent in the United States.
Perhaps it's no surprise, then, that Forbes magazine's latest list of global billionaires includes only 14 from France, without a single new entry this year. Germany, a country not twice its size, has four times as many, while Britain, which is about the same size, has 24.
Indeed, when you ask French university students who is the Bill Gates of France, they look at you blankly. It's not simply that they can't name one. The bigger problem is that they can't imagine why it matters, or why that has anything to do with why they can't find a good job.
By Steven Pearlstein
Wednesday, March 22, 2006; Page D01
Ah, springtime in Paris.
The sight of riot police outside the Sorbonne.
Street demonstrations against a French law giving employers more flexibility when hiring workers got a little out of hand in Paris yesterday.
The smell of tear gas wafting along the Seine.
The sweet sounds of hypocrisy floating from the National Assembly and the Elysee Palace.
And, next Tuesday, a national strike, perfectly timed to create a four-day weekend.
What inspired this season's revolutionary festivities is a radical new law that would give employers up to two years before deciding whether to give new young employees the kind of lifetime job security conferred by French law.
To those of you brainwashed by Anglo-American market capitalism, this might appear like the sort of labor market flexibility they babble on about at meetings like this week's European summit -- the kind that might actually entice a French company to create a new job.
But when viewed through the dark prism of the French imagination, these aren't real jobs -- they're "garbage jobs" and "slave contracts" meant to undermine the birthright of all Frenchmen to be shielded from all economic risk. Give in on this, and who knows what could go next? The 35-hour workweek? The six weeks of paid vacation? State-mandated profit sharing? Retirement at age 60?
What's so galling about the French is that, in the name of equality and solidarity, they are well on their way to creating not only one of the least vibrant economies in the industrialized world, but also one of the least equitable.
The "insiders" of this economy consist of a shrinking pool of older, middle-class workers who enjoy the full panoply of worker protections. Most of them are in the public sector or heavily regulated private industries, with the rest in a dwindling number of competitive private firms.
And then there are the "outsiders." This growing pool includes the unemployed young men of the mostly immigrant suburbs who went on a rampage last year, throwing rocks and burning cars. But it also includes the children of "insiders," who tend to hang around the university until they are 24 or 25, then drift between unpaid internships, temp jobs and welfare for another five years before finally getting "inside."
You'd think that, with all that time they spend chatting away in cafes, these young "outsiders" would have figured out by now that this system, which protects and cossets the "insiders" at all costs, is sucking the innovation and vitality from the economy. But rather than supporting the reforms that might generate more jobs and more income, the outsiders have bought into the nostalgic fantasy of a France that once was, but can never be again, making common cause with the very "insiders" whose selfishness and pigheaded socialism have left them out in the cold.
That said, you can hardly blame the kids for being confused about their economic predicament.
After all, the supposedly center-right government that pushed through the new youth-employment contract is the same government that adamantly refused to give up subsidies for farmers, stepped in to prevent foreign takeovers of French companies and, just last week, demanded that Apple iPods accept music downloads from iTunes competitors (read: French competitors). But having declared, in effect, that markets cannot be trusted to generate socially and politically acceptable outcomes, the same government is now shocked to find that it doesn't have much credibility when it asks workers to trust markets when it comes to the terms of their employment.
This sort of calculated hypocrisy among the French political elite, which likes to "talk left, act right," has now completely undermined support for market capitalism. A telling poll released in January by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland found that only 36 percent of French respondents felt that "the free enterprise system and free market economy" is the best system. That's the lowest response from any of the 22 countries polled and compares with 59 percent in Italy, 65 percent in Germany, 66 percent in Britain and 71 percent in the United States.
Perhaps it's no surprise, then, that Forbes magazine's latest list of global billionaires includes only 14 from France, without a single new entry this year. Germany, a country not twice its size, has four times as many, while Britain, which is about the same size, has 24.
Indeed, when you ask French university students who is the Bill Gates of France, they look at you blankly. It's not simply that they can't name one. The bigger problem is that they can't imagine why it matters, or why that has anything to do with why they can't find a good job.
Super Genius
Posts: 1,348
March 24th, 2006, 01:45 PM
You don t even know what is going on overthere, and you spew that stupidity, incredible.
Quoting
I will never understand the logic of smashing things in your own city. What does it gain you? Nothing, you're in essence a moron. What we in the West should start doing with long-haired greasy rioters who like to pelt police with stones and molotavs, smash shops and overturn cars, and generally just run amock, is take the Asian approach. Get a few hundred riot police, and let them go nuts on the wankers. I mean, none of this Western restraint we see the police use, let the cops just flip out and pummel the protesters. If a few social f.uck-wads go down bleeding profusely, the crowd will disperse. Then again that's just my view on how to control the social degenerates of our society.
You don t even know what is going on overthere, and you spew that stupidity, incredible.
Super Genius
Posts: 1,239
Location: Edmonton
Location: Edmonton
March 24th, 2006, 02:13 PM
Quote:
Slobber, slobber.
You don t even know what is going on overthere, and you spew that stupidity, incredible.
Quote:
Oh it was Jay, I understand fully what is going on in France. I also see a bunch of punks rioting over an issue that will not be changed by smashing a McDonalds. Call me a wet-blanket, but rioting has never appealed to me for the sake of getting POSITIVE attention.
Hmmm I thought it was made clear...
Super Genius
Posts: 1,239
Location: Edmonton
Location: Edmonton
March 24th, 2006, 03:22 PM
Quote:
I read an article in that where it said that Tim Hortons was behind the War in Iraq because they're an evil corporation and they want to spread opium through their coffee to the muslims in Iraq so we can dominate them then take over their oil pipelines. Then we'll give them more coffee with more opium and be an even more evil corporation then start selling sandwiches and french vanilla coffee to the Iraiq's so they'll do everything we ask. Then they'll open a drive-thru but the Iraqi's will bung up the process by ordering sandwiches in the drive-thru and then everyone will get mad. Why shouldn't they? I mean a sandwich in a drive-thru? Why should mohamad wallywallybingbang get to tie up the line ordering oven-roasted camel sandwiches while ackmhed oopdeeshopfla just wants his large double double? See what'll happen is that the Iraqis will get so mad at drive thru they'll delcare a jihad on it and take away any attention that Tim Hortons and the other evil corporations (wendys, burger king, domino's, and extreme pita) have gotten by selling their evil products in Iraq. The jihad will consist of suicide bombings targeting drive-thru microphone boxes and egging the windows, also it may including threatening Iraqi women who work at the restaurants with death for wearing a hairnet over their burkas. Meanwhile the fat cats in North America will sit here and count the millions of dollars they made off of selling fast food to the Iraqi's. I swear I read it in the magazine!
He must mean that we aren't reading the Communist International Magazine....so how could we know what the bastards are really up to.
Steven Hawking's Tutor
Posts: 4,995
Location: Florida, Hurricane Central
Location: Florida, Hurricane Central
March 24th, 2006, 04:59 PM
There's no Bush connection!
Quoting
This cannot be true.Quote:
I read an article in that where it said that Tim Hortons was behind the War in Iraq because they're an evil corporation and they want to spread opium through their coffee to the muslims in Iraq so we can dominate them then take over their oil pipelines. Then we'll give them more coffee with more opium and be an even more evil corporation then start selling sandwiches and french vanilla coffee to the Iraiq's so they'll do everything we ask. Then they'll open a drive-thru but the Iraqi's will bung up the process by ordering sandwiches in the drive-thru and then everyone will get mad. Why shouldn't they? I mean a sandwich in a drive-thru? Why should mohamad wallywallybingbang get to tie up the line ordering oven-roasted camel sandwiches while ackmhed oopdeeshopfla just wants his large double double? See what'll happen is that the Iraqis will get so mad at drive thru they'll delcare a jihad on it and take away any attention that Tim Hortons and the other evil corporations (wendys, burger king, domino's, and extreme pita) have gotten by selling their evil products in Iraq. The jihad will consist of suicide bombings targeting drive-thru microphone boxes and egging the windows, also it may including threatening Iraqi women who work at the restaurants with death for wearing a hairnet over their burkas. Meanwhile the fat cats in North America will sit here and count the millions of dollars they made off of selling fast food to the Iraqi's. I swear I read it in the magazine!
He must mean that we aren't reading the Communist International Magazine....so how could we know what the bastards are really up to.
There's no Bush connection!
