Vive Bastille!

I started writing this in an inspired mood with a target in mind. However, i failed to check and discovered that they had already published something about this. Oh well, better luck next time. Let me know if you think of anywhere else that might be interested in it. Enjoy!

Vive Bastille!

As the French riot once again, the pressing question on American’s minds is whether this is merely confirmation of how dangerous the world out there really is, and whether they should postpone that planned visit or year abroad to the sample la vie Française.

The signs are not promising. Unlike the previous rioting that took place in the suburbs of major cities where tourists are unlikely to ever go and by people who the average tourist is only likely to encounter when ordering food in a restaurant, this is happening on the campuses of the nations most prestigious universities and is being carried out by students who will likely one day own the aforementioned restaurants.

Amusingly, the cause of the latest rioting is legislation that Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, passed to try to fix some of the problems thrown up by the first round of rioting, namely the high levels of unemployment amongst the young, mostly Arab, men who live in the suburbs of major French cities (in some cases it is as high as 40%, as compared to the national average that circles at around 9%).

It did this by making it easier for French employers to lay off workers under the age of 26, the logic being that if it is easier to fire people, then companies might be more willing to hire people (this may seem illogical, but French labor costs – pension and healthcare benefits, as well as salary – and current legislation that makes it nigh on impossible for a Frenchman to get fired mean that employers are very wary of hiring new people. Or this is what the government claims at any rate).

Nevertheless, this naturally stirred up some resentment amongst the parts of French youth who were not having the same difficulties getting a job as the part of French youth who had rioted previously. They take exception to the fact that the government has now made it easier for their first employers to lay them off with greater ease.

Hence we come to the scenario today, where riot police have tear gassed students on the august grounds of the Sorbonne. Not very promising for your average American student looking to do a year abroad in France: while he was never going to be visiting Clichy-sur-Bois (or any of the other depressing ghettos where the French dump their immigrant populations), he may find himself attending class in a university building that is being beset upon by jackbooted policemen.

Still, the truth is that these riots are likely to pass. The French have a long and distinguished tradition of rioting when aggrieved at government (one could even say that they exported this notion across the pond to the U.S. who overthrew the perfidious Brits with French aid), they beheaded a queen and toppled a system of absolute monarchy. In a way, the current bout of rioting is their way of expressing themselves against the monarchical rule of President Jacques Chirac and his heir apparent Dominique de Villepin.

Unfortunately, this is not the only threat your spry young visitor to France. He has also to contend with the menace of avian flu and the growing menace of isolationism that seems to be gripping France.

First, let me dispel the avian flu threat. It has been found in France, but it has not been affected people yet. Unlike the previous threats of mad cow disease, this is a disease that kills quickly (mad cow can take up to 10 years to reveal itself – avian flu will have you on your back in a few days) and only kills people who have been in contact with a bird riddled with the disease. So unless you are planning to live on a poultry farm or play with dead/dying chickens, you will be safe. This is in fact a universal statement that should be emphasized to everyone who is swept up in the hysterical panic that we have been wound into by avian flu watchers.

The isolationism threat, however, is a very different sort of proposition. The latest incarnation of this disease is the wave of protectionism of has gripped France. They have fended off Italian approaches to Suez, an energy and water company, by instead pushing for Suez to be merged into the bigger French utility Gaz de France. They have grown cantankerous and angry when American Pepsi approached Danone, and are currently raging that Indian Lakshmi Mittal has the audacity to want to buy their steel company Arcelor. Even worse, they have threatened Hewlett-Packard for suggesting that they might have to lay off some workers in France, and they are still terrified that waves of Polish plumbers are going to storm their shores, raping their women and plundering their lucrative plumbing jobs.

This sort of closed minded isolationism is not good news for France. If you are a foreign company looking for a new place to set up shop, are you likely to want to go to a country that has a track record of favoring national companies, threatening companies that are looking to trim workforces to make savings, and has already made it tough for you to even get rid of people in the first place? France may have great infrastructure and an educated workforce, but so do many other European nations with far less restrictive labor practices.

This is not a cheer for unbridled capitalism, it is however a warning that a nation cannot save jobs by jealously hording the ones that it has. Simply making it hard to fire people may force companies to hold on to staff, but it certainly doesn’t inspire them to hire any more staff.

So what should they do? The new legislation to facilitate hiring and firing amongst youth is a sort of start. It is an acknowledgement of movement in the right direction, but at the same time is not quite the right direction. Ultimately, it was created to address a different problem, the marginalization of young Arabs in France. The real way of dealing with this racism is to promote positive discrimination in France: the current legislation in no way obliges employers in France to hire young Arabs; it simply facilitates their hiring and firing of under-26 year-olds.

The real direction to move in is to improve education. If you make your workforce more intelligent and better trained, they will be naturally more attractive to employers.

How does this all affect your visiting American? Well, very little really. As long as he or she stays clear of rioting hordes, poultry farms and is not planning on making any major investments in France they should be fine. It does not, however, bode particularly well for future visits to France, as it will start to affect France’s position in the globe and its ability to guarantee economic growth. And if France starts to decline, then we will only see more of this protectionism before we see improvement.