Post #224228 by joefla70 on Fri, Mar 31, 2006 12:33 PM

On 2006-03-31 11:46, Swanky wrote:
They have Fox News on here at work, and according to them, the reason the riot police are standing nearby and not attacking and shutting this down is because the French government is confused and poorly led. Yeah, that's it. A real government would be pounding the citizens into pulp.

I don't want to get into issues of politics which I know is taboo on TC per the posting rules (The first rule of tiki central is you don't talk about tiki central!, so I won't discuss my personal feelings about this issue...

But what I heard is that the French government is trying to change the current state of the employment law to remove protections for workers who are 26 and under if they have not been employed by a company for more than two years. From what I understand, a French company cannot just fire someone for no reason (unlike what most U.S. companies can do). The reason given by the government for doing this is to encourage employers to hire young people because they believe that many employers do not want to take the risk of hiring a young person if they would be stuck with that person as an employee and it would be hard to fire them. Apprently the unemployment rate for French persons of that age is pretty high compared to other countries, including the U.S. and Europe. Opponents believe that if this law was passed, an employer would then be able to just hire a person, then wait almost two years, and then fire that person without having a reason, and without giving that person benefits. Other people have objected saying that if this law is changed, it should be changed for everyone, not just for people under 26.