Protests in "For our last hope of safety"
Go to hundreds of thousands in France students and unionists on the road. You want to stop the new Labour government - but by no means only.
Already in the morning the announcement runs through all Paris metro stations: "Due to a social movement station Republique remains today to about 18:00 banned". That it has not long been: France youth walking on the road, followed by the trade unions.
In the afternoon is the great Republic Square in Paris full of people, according to the organizers, there are 80,000 demonstrators, the police occupies 29,000. That makes here still no real large demo. But then it has are normal students, disorganized, in jeans and anorak, some of them wearing themselves painted panels. A youth who in recent years political hid behind the iPhone. But students and unionists protesting simultaneously at 250 locations across the country. Nationally, there are, according to police 224,000 people, the organizers even speak of half a million demonstrators. There are polls, according to which 50 percent of French people find the protest sympathetic, only 25 percent reject it.
Any one of the protest against the new labor law by President François Hollande . It is intended to facilitate dismissals by limiting the maximum amount of severance pay upon termination drastically. In addition, the conditions for compulsory redundancies should be relaxed. "The contractor shall have no more fear of recruitment, because he fears layoffs in the future," explained Prime Minister Manuel Valls the new law.
"That is social insecurity for all," replies on Wednesday the 22-year-old Parisian student politics Clemence Leduc on the Republic Square.She has brought her lunch in a plastic bag itself. "Labour, you are lost, the youth is on the road", the students sing Clemence. Here, the student of the arguments of the other side is well aware: Just young and unemployed people who are looking for work, due to the strong employment protection remain unaffected chance, wrote a number of respected economists, including the French Nobel laureate economist Jean Tirole, in a recent call for the law. Clemence has read the call.
"For economists like Tirole, think globally, the uncertainty in the workplace is completely normal. It exists worldwide," analyzes the young student. "But we will be taken with the new law the last hope that we in our lives can again escape this uncertainty." She was not against globalization. "We must not give only to codify rules for globalization," said Clemence.
the Government Prevents again the youth revolt?
So it is not only left student groups and trade unions on the road. Clemence certainly not one of them. Very reason, however, the French Government is highly concerned ". One must always be careful with youth demonstrations You never know what will happen to them," President Hollande warned a few days ago a small group of his advisers. In fact, a government in Paris to protest the road had to in the past 30 years by one add: 1986, 1994, 1995, 2006 - each time choked youth revolts accompanied by unions ambitious reform projects. But the history has to repeat in 2016?
Prime Minister Valls negotiated in recent days been a part of the trade unions on a new version of the law. It is quite possible, therefore, that the government plans to back down and wants to stifle the protests so that in the bud. This would of course also risk their credibility.On the other hand: it remains hard could it a hot spring ahead. Because of course it is the youth not only to the labor law.
"I'm afraid that we just give up all of our values," said politics student Clemence - and thinks of France's embarrassing refugee policy: "We do not even thousands, but hundreds of Syrian refugees", ashamed they. "Politically unpredictable" is this youth today, noticed the young expert Anne Muxel from Paris research center Cevipof. Unpredictable are for President Hollande therefore the next few weeks: It can happen to nothing or a large part of the French are really angry. The crux: The weaker the president, the more adventurous the people. And Hollande is currently far from being popular in France . More demos are already on Saturday, planned on 17 and 31 March.
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"We thought we had elected a left-wing party! ... No copy of Schröder with Hartz IV and mini-jobs ..."
Hopefully the protests grow louder and widen out even more. France must not little by little to follow the negative example of Germany.