The best days of your life
I first became aware of the contrat première embauche (CPE) • France’s controversial youth employment law • in early March. Some of the teachers at my school, Lycée Honoré-de-Balzac, were on strike, but in France that is hardly reason for concern. I thought no more of it; in spring the French usually find a reason to take to the streets. As things developed it became obvious that this was more than just the usual spring marching season.
What exactly is the CPE, and why is it so unpopular? The new contract is part of a series of changes proposed by Dominique de Villepin’s right-wing UMP government, collectively known as the loi sur l’égalité des chances (equality of opportunity law). This is their answer to the riots back in November in the rough suburbs around the country, where youth unemployment can reach 40%.
The contract applies to those under 26, and includes a two-year trial period during which the employer can sack a worker at short notice and without giving a reason. After two years the employee has a secure, indefinite contract. The logic: if it is easier to fire, employers will be more willing to hire.
This innovation goes very much against the grain of French employment law, which in good socialist style makes it difficult to fire employees; in a country where unemployment has not fallen below 8% during the past 20 years people are naturally concerned about job security. I am no economist, but I do at least understand that you need jobs before you can have job security and that a more flexible labour market, for France, would probably be a good thing.
Currently employers do not hire because they fear being stuck with unproductive workers or being unable to lay off workers in an economic downturn. Thus they will only take on those from ‘safe’ categories: not too young or old, with the correct string of diplomas and qualifications and, preferably, white. Protest at the nature of the CPE soon reached not merely the professions and universities, but also schools. Lycée Balzac was blockaded for ten days in the past month.
One bright spark called the CPE ‘contrat poubelle embauche’, ‘dustbin-employment’ contract. I wonder how much these lycée students, aged 15-18, understand about the contract, or about the complexities of tackling a 20% youth unemployment rate. I asked them why they were blocking the school, thereby jeopardising their education: ‘because with the CPE we have no future, so our baccalaureate is worth nothing.
A slight exaggeration, perhaps? It is roughly what the union leaders are saying. The problem is, the unions protect only their workers’ interests, and do not give a damn for those who are unemployed • which is where 20-30% of my students will be in a few years time if nothing changes. I smile as I wonder what would have happened had a minority tried to barricade the entrance to my comprehensive back in the UK. If the teachers had not removed us forcibly the police soon would have.
Although blocking lycées and universities is illegal, very few heads are willing to call the police to clear the blockades, because they do not want to aggravate the situation. France’s riot police, the CRS, is notoriously heavyhanded, allegedly racist and universally disliked. When they cleared the Sorbonne at the Rector’s request it made international headlines, and gave rise to (unjustified) comparisons with Tiananmen Square.
At Balzac, the CRS were called in last year to clear students who had been occupying the school; the result was that all the teachers (more or less neutral until then) joined in solidarity with the students and the head teacher was left isolated and even less popular than before. No wonder that this year she refuses to call the police and has negotiated with the students to allow secondary-school pupils and post-baccalaureate classes through the barricades.
In France, protest and blockade is a legitimate part of the culture in a way that a Brit of my generation finds hard to comprehend. Fascinated by the power of the streets, I meet one of my teachers on Tuesday 28th March, the fourth major day of strikes and protests. We join the demonstration and head up to Place de la République, where it is due to disperse.
In every side street we pass there is a squadron of CRS or gendarmes in full riot gear, standing by in case of trouble and preventing protesters from spilling into the back streets. Notwithstanding this presence, there is a carnival atmosphere. Parents and children are there having a good time, there are balloons, colourful flags, even food stands have been set up. As we enter République, however, all is not well.
There are casseurs on the east side of the square deliberately provoking the police. These are mostly hooded youths from the suburbs, children of immigrants, many of whom were involved in November’s riots. Disillusioned with a French state which tells them they are equal but does nothing about the racism which keeps them from work, they have come to express their frustration in the only way they can. A policeman throws a canister, and tear gas mingles with the smoke from the food stands.
Every now and then the police charge, causing the crowd of casseurs to run back towards the demonstrators entering at the square’s south side. Protecting the marchers entering the square is the unions’ own militia, the services d’ordre, stocky unionists who have formed a wall and eagerly throw a punch or two at any hooded youths who come too close. One demonstrator shouts at the militia for ‘failing to preserve the unity of the movement’.
Over 1 million out in the streets across France, according to police estimates (3 million according to the unions), several days of strikes, and most importantly some 70% of the population are against the CPE. This explains why modifying the contract, as President Jacques Chirac proposed in a televised address to the nation, was simply not enough, and why the government was eventually forced to drop it on Monday 10th April.
The French left and the unions are unwilling to accept that it will take radical and not reactionary action to reform France’s economy, providing a fair chance for immigrants desperate to assimilate and find work. The irony is that the French left are the true conservatives, and care little for the poor and marginalised of their society, who they claim to be in solidarity with.
There are cracks appearing in the Fifth Republic, and unless a government bold enough to do more than paper over them is found, November’s riots and spring’s protests will seem tame in comparison with what lies ahead.
20th Apr 2006