OVERSEAS BRIEFING

Author: SALIM SAGLAM

POITIERS, FRANCE - Concerned with their post-university career, the French students are on strike against Contrat Première Embauche (CPE), the new employment law proposed by the French PM Dominique de Villepin. This law enables the employers to fire newly hired employees between 18 and 26 years of age without showing due cause during the first two years of their employment. In protest of the new law, Université de Poitiers, excluding the schools of medicine and higher sciences, has been blocked by politically minded students since Feb. 13. Desks and chairs are piled in front of the entrance doors behind which the protesters camp. It is a common scene to see them with dirty pots, pans and other supplies camping behind the blocked doors.

A movement, which started in 13 universities in early February, is becoming national fast. About 40 of France's 84 universities saw student occupations to varying degrees on Friday in protest of the new law. Police intervened for the first time early Saturday to empty the main building of the Sorbonne, which had been occupied by student protesters for the past three days. According to BBC News Europe, tear gas and batons were used, at least two students were injured and some arrests were made. A demonstration will take place today in Paris with the participation of thousands of students from all over France. Recent police intervention and the memories of May 1968 in mind, security is already a concern.

France has the highest unemployment rate among youth in Europe swaying at 23 percent, and it goes up to 40 percent among the unskilled youth. According to Villepin, this new law aims at loosening the protectionist state policies concerning the labor market, rendering it more flexible and encouraging the employers to hire more employees. On the other hand the loosening of such socialist state policies, which the French take pride in, arises an anxiety among the youth who think that they will be more likely to be exploited by the employers under the new employment law.

Though students are against CPE, opinions on the strike, particularly on the blockage vary. A widespread sentiment among the student body is that the blockage impedes students' right to education. They also find it immature, disorganized and undemocratic, especially that around 300 student protesters shut down a university of more than 15,000 students. The protesters on the other hand assert that the blockage is their means to mobilize people against CPE. They say that there is a general assembly (assemblée générale) about the future of the blockage once in every three days open to the entire student body and those students against the blockage never show up to vote against it. Attendance at general assemblies so far has never exceeded 2,500.

With an annual economic growth rate below two percent over the last decade, France is finding it difficult to create new jobs for the 2.6 million unemployed. Though weakening of the socialist system is a likely consequence of CPE, it certainly is an attempt by the French government to tackle unemployment. Therefore, the latest developments constitute, on a governmental level, a good example for how a socialist system with a stagnant economy is readjusting to the new world rule. On the other hand, the French students' revolutionary enthusiast nature, their willingness to take the matter into their own hands and change it in their favor is certainly something to be respected. With the national protest in Paris on March 16 approaching, the political climate is heating up in France. We will see if it ever gets as hot as it was in May 1968.