|
HI!
Some of you might have read or heard about what is going on in France atm.
For those who have no idea what its all about : to make it simple, the government passed a law allowing companies to fire people under 26 without reasons. That law or work contract is called the CPE (Contrat première embauche).
In a country where companies hardly ever recruit young people, that law is supposed to make it easier and cheaper for them to do so (therefor creating new jobs, in theory at least), but at the same time making jobs more and more unsecure.
BUT!
I have been reading a lot of bullcrap in the international press, and quite some foreign friends of mine have been asking if I had been burning cars too.
WRONG
There is shit happening in Paris, but the people plundering the shops and burning cars are not related to the actual students movement.
I myself, living in a city of 300 000 inhabitants (namely Tours, center region)have not seen any kind of material destruction.
However, my university has been occupied (by us) for the last 6 weeks, and we have daily fights against cops. This is mostly because the government thought it would help to repress brutally our movement by sending in those "anti-riot cops" (dunno how to call them in english) to simply hit us hard and capture the leaders.
Since the very first day we have been struggling against cop violence and after 3 weeks we figured that if the government used violence against us, there was no other way for us to respond with violence too.
In most cases, when a students demonstration meets a police blocking, people will put their hands up and start singing either pacifist or revolutionary songs (depending on the days mood). Since the police will charge as soon as they spot any sign of "provocation" (whatever those might be), it is really hard to avoid streets fights.
However, and this is something that is actually rare, there are more injured cops than students, simply because we now respond to their acts of violence, and the imbalance in numbers gives us a clear advantage, even if the cops are armored with shields, kevlar and armed with gas bombs and those really hurty "sticks" ^^.
Anyways, i have taken a few pictures of what has been going on, however there are no pictures of violence since i dont really have time to take photos then ;P
Various pictures of a demonstration in Tours
As you can see there are not only students since a large part of the lower and middle classes joined the movement.
http://img506.imageshack.us/img506/2266/20060318fotoz00089nh.jpg
http://img354.imageshack.us/img354/3840/20060318fotoz00147sh.jpg
http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/765/20060318fotoz00182zh.jpg
http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/6259/20060318fotoz00119fx.jpg
Demonstration in front of my university
http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/591/20060318fotoz00192zh.jpg
Students assembly in my uni discussing and voting on what actions to take
http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/8669/20060323fotoz00011bu.jpg
Some friends and me tagging the streets and drawing marks of "corpses", symbol for those who "got killed by the CPE" and injured by cops
http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/7291/20060318fotoz00065qp.jpg
Ok, now this is me after a night at the university. Forgive my uglyness, we spent the night fighting off cops who wanted to retake the university, smoking a lot of pot and drinking like hell to stay awake ;D
http://img156.imageshack.us/my.php?image=20060318fotoz00033nr.jpg
A little personal story: one of the very first demonstration, as we were besieging a police station to force them to release the hostages (heheh ;D), a cop simply hit me in the face (for no obvious reason, I wasnt doing anything agressiv) with his shield, literally ripping my lip apart. Without even thinking I simply hit him back REAL hard in the face, since he wasnt wearing his helmet right (stupid asshole) I hit his mouth and he started bleeding like hell. As i realized what i had done i was like "hmm weak" and started running like a madman, and I spent 1hour running around non stop while being hunt by 5 cops. Eventually I escaped, but two weeks later i still had a huge mark on my lip. The thing making me feel good is that the policeman probably was hurt a lot more, since it looked pretty bad 8D
Aiight, feel free to discuss and I hope other french people will share pictures or stories ;D
|
asddf for some reason the pictures links r retarded lemme fix it
|
So responding with violence helps you'r cause? Maybe you should buy a gun and get yourself a kill and get you some more bragging rights. Othervise I agree with you'r cause, that law is stupid as hell.
|
no, violence doesnt help at all, but what do u want us to do oO u cant just stand there and get raped
and im not bragging i dont think my experience is anything special compared to whatever french students or others are experiencing atm
|
Don't back down dude! Your cause is justified, keep on fighting!
|
this law seems pretty ridiculous. I want some of what the french gvt were smoking
|
well economically seen its not ridiculous, it will indeed help companies growth but at the expense of what french people value a lot, which is job security
The ridiculous thing abt is that it just makes it easier for companies to fire, and therefor only INDIRECTLY easier to hire. In the end, its gonna look like this :
That woman is pregnant ? -> fired
Your sick? -> fired
You want holidays? -> fired
You disagree with your boss? -> fired
You are unhappy with ur working conditions? -> fired
|
even though i don't know enough about your situation and even though i don't necessarily agree with your position, i'm still glad to see that there are enough people in your country caring about politics and willing to stand up for their cause and to fight against the government. i know violence often just occurs in such cases, if you want it or not. policemen are usually only trained to deal with violence and fail at deescalating. whatever the background... it's good to see that ppl are still making a difference. ukraine, france, maybe belarussia. it's a good example for our american friends. =) probably just a matter of time until stuff like this reaches germany too (attac 4tw).
|
Wow. You have to explain a bit more about this law. I seriously doubt it's extreme like you illustrated. Either way, you will feel the pain now but if you really think about it, the young people stands to benefit from this. If you have the talent and the hardworkship then company will not let you go easy.
Australia just passed new industrial laws to give companies more power in workplace relations. Quite similiar circumstances wouldn't you say so? but i haven't seen anyone demonstrating here nor do i see the need for students to get involved in this.
last time Australian government took away student union's rights to collect fees from the student mass, there was riots but it was so stupid >_<.
|
Well if australian people agree with those laws or simply dont care its their business, there might be an ideological different between france's population and australia's.
And about the talent etc. yes its true but that only applies to well paid jobs and big companies, which are, in france at least, a minority. Most people work for small or middle sized companies, and those simply have to cut off costs, meaning hiring/firing people as they currently need it. Of course bigger companies have a different view on the matter.
Oh a funny fact: 2005 brought an increase of 50% in profit for france's 40 biggest companies. Meanwhile unemployement isnt really shrinking... yes, lets help companies even more, they sure need it ! =P
|
I love how you said the universities are blocked but omitted to say that far from all the students want that. I always find funny that some people who don't even admit that the others could have a different opinions and who deny them their most basical rights pretend then to fight for the democracy.
And I don't even speak of all the intimidation during the so called "Students assembly". those that agree with the CPE can't even speak. There were two universities near Bordeau blocked since several weeks, then some students asked that the vote could be made properly (that you could vote without the others knowing for whom you have voted (secret ballot)). Without any surprise the result was in favor of stopping the blocus. Another exemple? yesterday there was the Crous election. The Crous is a student organisation. UNEF, the union which is organisating the blocus, tried by all means to invalidate this election, by stealing urns (don't know if it's the same word in english: that's the box where you put the paper on which you have written your vote) voting several times etc showing one more time their conception of democracy.
And then we could speak about the various degredations in the universities etc.
So cop vilence? my ass.
|
There just seems to be a huge class division in your country now >_<. if what you said is indeed true then i really see no need for them to do this unless they are stepping up to compete with China. If you really think about, the jobs are always going to be there unless the companies went offshores. So, even thou people might get fired, there will always going to be enough jobs for everyone.
A smart government should always have a fall back plan to cover that so unemployment != riots but apparently its not happening in your country >_<
i always thought France is one of the top countries to have a high literate class. Just strange to see you out of all people to have this problem >_<.
|
you have perfectly right clause, kick those fucking police, burn the parliament and destroy the eiffel tower  (its such an ugly tower you can build a mermaid or stone stuff to replace it later )
|
Well more than 25% of the youngs (18-25 year-old) are unemployed in France, whereas the total unemployment rate is at 9.8%. That's because they don't have enough experience and so are not hired.
The idea was to allow them to be easily fired so that:
1) compagny would like to hire them even if they are inexperienced
2) they will get experience more easily
3) it will bring a bit of flexibility (so that compagny would not hesitate to hire somenone when they have the occasion since they could fire him if their economic situation becomes bad)
|
On March 25 2006 04:35 iD.GioM wrote:
The ridiculous thing abt is that it just makes it easier for companies to fire, and therefor only INDIRECTLY easier to hire. In the end, its gonna look like this :
That woman is pregnant ? -> fired
Your sick? -> fired
You want holidays? -> fired
You disagree with your boss? -> fired
You are unhappy with ur working conditions? -> fired
This is absolutely wrong.
You should read this.
|
uhm Agone wtf oO
i cant say what is going on in other cities or universities, but here in Tours we vote every monday for/against another week of blocking, and the result is very clear, there is no manipulation or whatever it just turns out we are about 3 times more people for the blocking than people against it.. and obviously I do know quite a few students are against it because they r scared about their own little lifes and studies, but they are allowed to speak in assemblies like everyone else so i dunno what ur talking about oO those people claim to be the "silent majority", but i dont see why they should be silent if theyr so sure to be the majority =P
few days ago there was a demonstration of people against the blocking, guess what there were 300 people there =P
kinda of funny compared to the 10 000 people in the streets the saturday before
about "degradations", if your talking about those images shown on TV of this minister showing the "ancient books burned and destroyed by students", that is just too funny ! My university is occupied for like 6 weeks and the only material destruction that happened was a few chairs that broke down O_O
About the CROUS election no idea what ur talking about, once again here in Tours the elections were held normally and nobody even thought of protesting against the outcome
|
its wrong ? then why did 35 000 out of 150 00 people hired under the CNE contract get fired already ? oO
and btw I totally understand different opinions, I didnt join the cause immediatly it took me abt 2 weeks to study the law and decide wether i was against it or for it ;o
and as I said before, economically seen the CPE is not bad, I just dont think u should promote the economy at the expense of social stability
|
A little personal story: one of the very first demonstration, as we were besieging a police station to force them to release the hostages a cop simply hit me in the face (for no obvious reason, I wasnt doing anything agressiv) ... either you are a fucking idiot, or I'm missing an important detail oh yeah, the one where you AREN'T being agressive by BESEIGING a police station?!
|
with besieging i mean we were about 5000 people standing outside the police station singing n dancing =P there was nothing thrown at the police or any cop beaten up, it was completly peaceful  sry if I didnt express myself right ;o
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
