What's going on in Paris?
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=letMqjYpKZo

What are these protests about? Anyone here read French?

Man, this is not making our news at all here, isn't the date May 12?

It appears to be linked to this
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-w...block-highways

Mind you, that was just one hit on google and I have no idea about that source's credibility about the details and opinions etc.

I guess it has something to do with pro business labor reforms?
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-n...-paris-7956445

Man, they don't have any way top control that?

I'd hate to be a cop these days.

You're sent into a line of molotovs and bricks with tied hands to protect people that make 10-times what you make, that just a week before were telling you how you're a drain on the nations budget with your minimal wage and you're protecting them from people that their parents made sure that they make three times what you do because let's face it, the farmers and workers, the real ''got the short end of the stick'', are never really seen setting streets on fire.


Ah, this, this is a game changer
Slovenia is already in this state and now I can understand why they're angry.
And I hope they fight their way to the french parliament and torch it to the ground

The French?

Protesting?

DEAR GOD!

:har: :03:

Ah, one thing you learn being the next door neighbours of these guys is that they do love a good protest, even better if they can shut something down...like a port, the Air Traffic Control system, the rail network, the more disruption the better. :yep:
Still, to be fair on them, governments and companies alike seem to not listen to anything other than force these days, and then use that same force as an excuse to clamp down on things. :hmmm:
Damned if you do...

That's terrible.

No, let me tell you what's terrible.
Living in your parents house because no bank will touch you without a full time contract.
Living in your parents house because there is no certainty that you'll be able to pay rent in 2 months from now.
Being fired every six months for a week because a loophole was placed in the laws to prevent the company having to take you in full time (law states that they can only extend a ''starting'' 3 month contract one time before they are obliged to give you a full time).
Not daring to plan your vacation because you fear that that money you just spent on booking will be needed to survive before the summer begins.
Not trying to start a family because your wife/gf will be fired as soon as the contract ends or even worse, the next day she anounces she's pregnant. Full maternity leave is available only with full time contracts and they are as rare as a dodo bird after the last few labor reforms the French are protesting against.
Companies allowed to give you an option to be self employed of GTFO, which means no paid vacation and no paid sick leave. You break your arm at work, tough luck, best case scenario you're out of a months wage, worse case, the job is given to someone else.

That is what we got and the French are getting and the French were lucky enough to have been warned. We just got informed by employers one day that the laws have changed.

So burning down the parliament is not terrible, leaving it standing to further spread misery amongst the nation is.

The French were an integral player in the EU when the Working Time Regulations were devised:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_Time_Directive

It would appear the French government would like to make their country's economy more flexible, competitive and productive. To do that, they say they need to end some long-standing worker protections. Legislation that's moving forward would make it easier for employers to hire and fire workers.

So much for EU membership.

Mr Cameron will no doubt be keeping a close watch on developments.

That's going to be tricky when he has his head up the EU's never never region. :03:

The social demands of the French are extremely high, compared to other eurpean countries. This is ruinous for the economy, it prevents investments and hinders the hiring of people - becasue for companies in France it is even more diffiuclt than in Germany to fire them again if the company goes into a dive and suffers. The demands for what the state has to come up for, also are extremely high in France. "The state pays for it!" is a French idiom, so to speak. They do not think beyond this simplicistic phrase.

If even an open socialist like Koland now sees the need to correct these things a bit, this really should tell people how desperately down the fiscal situation of france indeed is. There is a reason why many insiders and observers see not Italy Greece, Ireland or Spain as the most likely an most dangerous cause for an Euro crisis, but France. Just that the "saving" of France will cost others much, much more than Greece or Ireland.

They must pass through this deep dark valley, and then even deeper valleys, the French state as of today is unsustainable they way it was run in the past. Just wishing for socialist regimes, will not do any good in the long run.

On the contrary....if he sees France getting away with such reforms he will do likewise.

Remember your mate Mrs Thatcher?

http://i68.tinypic.com/orrvav.jpg

Contracts? WTH is a contract? Somehow we manage to survive over here and no one has any contract.:hmm2:

Just remember, when you start burning Parliament, people will die.

A contract was a signed paper that the employee will do his/her best to earn her wage and not cause problems and the employer will treat the employe like a human being.

If you want to survive like an animal, go ahead, but some of us want to thrive, have stable jobs and security so we can start a family, see the world, work hard and play hard.
Something the previous generation already did and then decided to screw us over in the name of profit and capital. Rewrite fair trade laws that helped them build a house and have a family so that we are nothing but serfs to the economy. Cheap disposable labour, from fieldhand to an engineer. Skills and humanity don't matter anymore, only profit margins. Helped by the fear of a runaway unemployment.
It's like the feudal ages are back and I crawled out a too poor vagina to be anything more than a peasant.
And this is not some failed art student talking about entitlement, this is a man with 10 years experience in hard work in luxury yacht construction and some minor stints in retail and organisation when I needed the extra euro in my pocket and a volunteer servicer with the civil defence as a medic.

Only 90 of them.
The killers of a nation.

None of that is nearly as terrible as life in a country without a functioning government. Instead of planning your vacation you're going to be planning how you and your family will survive so be careful what you wish for.

That's rich coming from a republican (all that tooo much goverment rhetoric)

And https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...ed-in-belgium/


No, not enough, that's rich coming from a republican that lived trough an era of American history that benefited job and life securities from the Roosevelt administration and now has the cohones to acuse my generation of being priviliged spoiled brats becasue we demand the SAME LEVEL OF LIVING STANDARDS