Gateway Pundit has a fine roundup covering the French government's predictable cave-in on even the most modest labour market reforms. Of course, it's precisely because of France's sclerotic labour laws that hiring people is prohibitive, leading to a situation in which many of the people in its ghettos have no way to take that critical first step onto the employment ladder. With predictable results. And see Claire Belinski's anecdotes re: talking to Taxi drivers in America vs. France.
Compare and contrast. France has large demonstrations by people who want to be able NOT to work while getting paid, while the USA has problems with large demomstrations by people who want to continue getting in to work in low-paying jobs, in an economy that barely remembers the 10% unemployment rate that has been Europe's floor for over a decade. Leaving aside the very real issues with illegal immigration, the contrast in problems is telling. Whose would you rather have?
Publius Pundit has more, including this classic set of observations:
"Everyone who says he is a socialist, or communist, fully expects to be the guy calling the shots. Nobody, on the other hand, wants to live UNDER socialism. That’s the basic problem of these ideological systems, their inherent privilege for the select few.
And like any Latin American society (my Belgian friends call the French ‘Northern Latin Americans’), French society is premised on privileges, tiers and tiers of privilege, the spoiled students have privileges of jobs over the Arab immigrants’ children, the old workers have privileges of laziness over the young who must bust butt, the graduates of fancy state universities get government jobs over the graduates of lowbrow polytechnics.
It’s like that all over Europe and Latin America, and especially in France. There is no such thing as equal opportunity for all, equal standards for all. It all has to be in tiers. And nobody questions the tiers."
His arrow-straight focus on the issue of privilege as socialism's money-equivalent and economic driver is spot-on. As is the contrast with the idea behind the North American experiment. Mark Steyn is quite right to refer to this round of rioters as:
"Marie-Antoinettes: Unemployment rates for immigrants? Let 'em eat cake, as long as our pampered existence is undisturbed."
Which it will be, of course, as a direct corollary to their actions - but if they could think ahead, they wouldn't be out there demonstrating for such ridiculous purposes now would they? Couple that with Europe's demographic pension bomb, weak economic growth due to over-regulation, and EU democracy deficit, and it's hard to see much hope that Europe generally and France in particular will be able to deal successfully with their problems.
It's useful to remember this stuff next time you read yet-another laughable, starry-eyed hosana to Euro-socialism by people like Jeremny Rifkin. When you look at France and compare his analysis with analyses like "Dreaming Europe in a Wide-Awake World," recent events are definitely an indicator of which future is more likely to come true.
Rifkin's fantasia of global Euro-dominance? More like slim pickings. Or Slim Pickens, riding the population + Euro-sclerosis bomb all the way down.
A pity. For the growth in Anti-Americanism as their convenient diversion and substitute Jew, along with plenty of anti-Semitism aimed at the real McGoldberg, are well-worn and clear corollaries of an inflexible future of failure for Europe. Something Claire Berlinski observed in pretty explicit terms - note esp. the letter she reproduces.