Edito : Reforms...

Edito

Reforms...

by Robert ASSADOURIAN

The CPE* crisis got out of hand because the demonstrators and the supporters pretend to believe that flexibility and uncertainty are synonymous! After semantic inaccuracy then come the realities. Indeed, the French Labour code offers enormous protection for those who benefit from a stable employment whereas the employment rate of our youngsters remains the weakest of the countries of the OECD. This dualism of the labour market will doubtless continue, because on one hand there is very little employment mobility and the youngsters who refuse all the reforms contribute to maintaining the status quo. After the success of the CNE*, Dominique de Villepin, brimming with ambition, launched one contract too much. Afterwards, faced with the direct and collateral damages, the President of the Republic whistled the end of the game.

The Prime Minister was in such a hurry to act that he over-looked discussions with the trade unions; then, paying no heed to the advice of his colleagues, he applied the 49/3 procedure, thereby provoking his opponents at the National Assembly. He consequently found himself on a mined ground faced with the young, among which an active minority, preparing diplomas with very limited outlets, blockaded a number of secondary schools and universities of literature and human sciences. As a result, Villepin's CPE joined the other failures: the Devaquet law (1986), Rocard's reform for the nurses and free school (1989), Balladur's CIP* (1994), Juppé's plan for the National Health reform (1995) … Furthermore, he offered a wonderful opportunity to the Trade Unions, the Leftwing parties, the Centrists and a number of his "friends" to unite together to kindle the fire of a very French speciality, called "strikes, palaver and plunder". That is social progress!

His CPE, which is a very political creation, was a targeted measuring gauge susceptible to offer work to young people of suburbs without qualification who, contrary to the demonstrating students, know and experience refusal and uncertainty every day. The fate of the students led by Bruno Julliard (President of the UNEF) and the young pupils is not precarious. It didn't stop them from taking their Easter holidays to recover from the fatigue of their three-weekly demonstrations… They needed to recuperate!

Today in France, even when a law has been voted, defended and promulgated, it can be rejected by demonstrators. France has inaugurated a legislative procedure that is much quicker than parliamentary procedures or referendums. The street has become the 3rd legislative tour. How can the anti-CPE Member of Parliament savour his success ? Indeed, the legislative legality that he represents and usually defends has been scoffed.

In a country of law, such a process is not acceptable because if a law that has been adopted by a justifiable majority is contested, even by a large opposition, it must then be put to the polls. In a democracy the rules of the game are fixed by law, not by the street.

The scholars and students, the former children-kings become young adults, don't appreciate being upset by realities. Indeed the society, the parents and even the teachers have contributed to protect the young from reality. Confident in their right to the baccalaureate (82 % obtain it), 70 % of them want civil servant's stability and worry about their pension.

Too many proposed or chosen studies offer no outlets. This year there are 45 000 students registered in Staps (sport) for 415 teachers posts! And what about the 117 000 students registered in Languages and Literature and the 247 000 in Human sciences (History, Philosophy, Sociology…) knowing that education, which is their natural outlet, will only select 2000? It is mainly these wrongly orientated that demonstrated.

There is a great contrast with the Universities of Sciences, Medicine, partially those of Law and the preparatory classes for the Great Schools, which stayed out of the conflict because these branches offer a true sphere of activities. On the other hand, those quoted first will pass by the Employment Agency or an underemployment before joining the working world. By surging against the CPE, the demonstrators impeded the classes and damaged their universities to avoid a harmless reform which barely concerned them. Nevertheless, to free the creation of employment and make the labour market more flexible are absolute priorities.

The French economic world has adapted itself better to modernism and consequently appears to be moving in the right direction. This remark is obvious if we compare it to the heaviness of the Department of Education and its very conservative members who hold firmly on to their acquired advantages, the reduction of their working hours and the Welfare State.

The young demonstrators want to obtain a guaranteed employment that pleases them, they want to benefit from the advantages of the market economy but refuse any liberalism. These conditions from which their parents benefited are impossible for them. As a result, if the CPE, which shyly tried to adhere to the economic realities, is not immediately retracted, the scholars and students consider it as an anti-young attack and a generator of uncertainty. This attitude is not that of the young people of suburbs who, confronted with real difficulties, change into vandals during the student demonstrations, to the great displeasure of the demonstrators who sought for the protection of the police which they otherwise decried. Try to understand…!

The President wisely stopped the CPE episode, and the mobilization for the future industries and the 2nd stage of the cancer plan that he proposes have the advantage of making unanimity ! However, certain questions remain: immigration, the petrol price, the Clearstream affair … will occupy the Executive body, which must nevertheless remember that the modernization of France and its democracy is a vital imperative. Otherwise thousands of young people and talented French graduates will continue to emigrate whereas for the others, the civil service, downgrading and even exclusion will remain the only
solutions.

*CPE : First employment contract
CNE : New employment contract
CIP : Professional insertion contract