The people, united, will never be defeated!

CHIRAC CAVES ON YOUTH LAW
http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2006/04/france_why_the_.html

DOUG IRELAND, DIRELAND - This morning in Paris, the conservative government of President Jacques Chirac caved in and announced that the special labor contract for under-26 workers that had sent millions of students and union members into the streets in protest was dead. The "CPE" (Contrat Premier Embauche or first-job contract) will be "replaced" by a new plan to provide subsidies to employers to encourage the hiring of young people in a country where youth unemployment is at 24% (and even higher -- upwards of 50% -- in the ghettos.). . .

As usual, the U.S. press understood little about the conflict. Over and over again, one heard the students referred to by TV's bubbleheads (from CBS to CNN) as "reactionaries" because they opposed the new law. But what the CPE law had done was to eliminate for under-26 workers the rights previously guaranteed to all French workers not to be fired without cause. Under the CPE, younger workers could be canned at any moment from the moment of their hiring up the two years' duration of these youth employment contracts without the employers' being required to justify the firing, if the fired worker chose to haul the employer before labor tribunals. . .