France

[Rones]

I figured we discuss the US and our politics enough. I stumbled upon this interesting article which eximplifies what happens with a socialistic government and union dominated economy. It's a few months old I realize with the most signifigant event since then being the Pairs riots which signal things becoming worse.

If you count all the Bank Holidays, rest days and other time off, the French take up to 11 weeks' holiday a year. The 35-hour working week is sacrosanct.
...
This collective idleness in August is doing nothing to boost a stagnating French economy. The modest government target of 2% growth this year is starting to look hopelessly optimistic.
...
If Mr Glutron were to lose his job, he'd still get about three-quarters of his salary as dole money, for up to two years.
...
in much of French society, the old mentality prevails: the idea that if you've paid your taxes, then you're entitled to stay on the dole until the right job comes along.

After seeing what happens in a labor dominated country I can live with a few evil corporations in the US economy.

 

[Farys]

Before digging it deeper, I'd like to know what you meant by "It's a few months old I realize with the most signifigant event since then being the Pairs riots which signal things becoming worse."?

What's the relation between french workers averaging 6 weeks of holidays/year has anything to do with young punks rioting for the sole pleasure of destroying and burning vehicules? I don't know what you've been told in the news but there was no riot leader, not a single one of those weed loaded punks steped up to act like some kind of leader with demands and/or questions.

On the topic of economy, of course you can live in a country ruled by "few" evil corporations since the whole market is ruled by those very few corporations.
The french welfare (and healthcare) system has shown its limits (as every system does at one point... unless you call on war to pump up your economy but that's another topic) but in a way it's a great system when the liberal system is on the loose and those "few" evil corporations decide it's no longer interesting money-wise (for the shareholders I mean) to let a industry runnning in some neglected regions, leaving hundreds or thousands ppl on the sidewalk.
In such times, this dole is all they have to feed their family until another company decides to adopt a french-friendly marketing face to bump their sales in our country, by implanting an industry in those areas where job is a rare/ex drop.

The only drawback this article shows and which discussed every year in our medias is that ppl tend to go on holidays all as the same time in august, leaving the cities empty.

 

[Rones]

What's the relation between french workers averaging 6 weeks of holidays/year has anything to do with young punks rioting for the sole pleasure of destroying and burning vehicules?

The relation is these people were rioting because they were poor and unemployed which is a result of a poor economy. That's the spin the media put on it, if that's wrong please explain the actual cause.

The only drawback this article shows and which discussed every year in our medias is that ppl tend to go on holidays all as the same time in august, leaving the cities empty.

Drawback is a slugish economy. If your people only work 3/5 the time of another economy, all other factors being equal, that economy is going to do poorly. The rest of the world doesn't stop every time France takes one of its numerous holidays, and this costs the country business. Foreign companies don't want to start an industry in a country where the people expect to work so little in comparison to other countries. This causes a weak economy, which when combined with an extremely left governmental system that pays out loads in civil services, you run into a problem. People aren't motivated to work because the government will take care of them and the government is taking in less money because people are so unproductive. If the government wasn't paying out so much people would see work as more important and having a slower economy wouldn't be so hard on the government.

It's the combination of two opposing factors that amplify the negative effects of the other. The final drawback mentioned is how Unions are so dominent there that the government has to tip toe around while trying to come up with a solution which means the solution won't come or will be a long time coming.

 

[Darkdante]

Balance is the key. Domination from either side is never any good, in perfect world both sides would be happy, so the closer you get to that, the closer everybody will see it as the way to go.

And I'd hardly call either the U.S. or France perfect.

Anyway I'd see your story more of a matter of geography than anything else. Not to be racist or anything but the people that your talking about are not just poor, they are Muslims arn't they?

And from what I see violence seems to follow them around alot.

 

[Farys]

The relation is these people were rioting because they were poor and unemployed which is a result of a poor economy. That's the spin the media put on it, if that's wrong please explain the actual cause.

As I told you before, if those ppl were riotting because of poverty and unemployment they'd have say so which wasn't the case. Not a single leader stepped up from the crowd to voice their issues.
Moreover, what did they go against : kindergarten, schools and cars. When you riot for food or job or against a government, I can assure you, you dont go against schools or cars. God! Even the Corses (some nationalist isulant in the south of the riviera) bomb police stations and town halls! Those were fucking brainless young men who went on a rampage because of the uncleared deaths of 3 youngs ppl supposedly chased by police officers. The police didn't kill them, they hide in a highvoltage room (sorry I miss the techincal term) and got electrocuted.

So what's the problem with them? The pb is most of those rioters (-ees?) are child of imigrant ppl from north africa (mainly maghreb).
Those first imigrants have to work hard and have pbs with the language and when they have kids they have difficulties helping them in their schoolworks.
Plus, being poor, they live in suburbs where the overall environment is plagued with crime.
Plus, the culture/religion/way of living in north maghred departs from our metropolitan one and they're acustomed to let their child being educated form neighborhood and live on the streets without fear for their wellbeing. In France, you can't let that happen (nor in any western society). This is not the mentality and thus some of those kids are left to themselves and more often than not, they start to do stupid things out of pure boredom.
Given that the integration of those ppl is more difficult than those of the former imigrant wave (italian in the 20's where my grand fathers come from, portugese also, etc...), it all leads to a situation where those kids are left in a society that they cant integrate and that despise them for being different (racism is always an issue).

I dont know if I've made myself clear enough but the main pb is that for too long we've blinded ourselves from the underlying pb of the north african imigration. Those ppl are to be handled from a different approach. Those kids didnt have proper education nor respect (hence pbs in schools with teachers but this pb too has too be adressed from varions points of view).

Drawback is a slugish economy. If your people only work 3/5 the time of another economy, all other factors being equal, that economy is going to do poorly. The rest of the world doesn't stop every time France takes one of its numerous holidays, and this costs the country business. Foreign companies don't want to start an industry in a country where the people expect to work so little in comparison to other countries.

Hmmm I'm sorry but France is not Barbadoes (sp). As any other country from the old continent, we have tourists attracted by our History and its testimonies of stones but we don't solely rely on tourism to live our life. It may be a hard think to understand for you but we have an economy with strong industries (oil, advanced technologies, telecom, space agencies, etc...).

I'll repeat myself again : most of our workers have 6 weeks of holidays, it's less than some northern europe countries who has a better economy than ours! I love how the old habits die hard : french are slackers and their women don't wear bras nor shave their armpit. How many times have I been asked if our women were hairy dwarves IN GAME!
But it's true that the ppl working in institutions have great privileges (those 11weeks you spoke of) which should be turned down for a better equality in our society. Those companies, owned by the gvt, have very strong and influent Unions that sometimes paralyze our country (trains, post, education mainly). There is some work to do in that department but don't come in here braggin that our whole society is only made of lazy bums. Thank you.

By the way, I'd like to point something out on your so called marvelous "be competitive or die" solution to all things economical. More and more of your brethens are on welfare and their industries put to a stop because of the rising countries in the East. You have more holidays than they do, you lazy
They work for less $$ too ^^
I'm sure you're not even (yet) concerned by those phenomens but everyone is in our liberal societies. Let's just hope that when China will open its doors for good, you'd have thought of something to defend (how liberal!) your economy and privileges.

This causes a weak economy, which when combined with an extremely left governmental system that pays out loads in civil services, you run into a problem. People aren't motivated to work because the government will take care of them and the government is taking in less money because people are so unproductive. If the government wasn't paying out so much people would see work as more important and having a slower economy wouldn't be so hard on the government.

For your information, we're so left that we're right. We got a right wing gvt for 6years now, doing whatever it can to take leave with the gvt companies I told you about some lines up from here (energy, post, bank).

On the value of work : I think there's a gap opening under the feet of the younger generations. One hand, you have medias and the entertainment industry valueing the meaning of "finding the right job" (which never is working in an industry line of production, riveting day in day out mind you)or "find the star within you" (american idols, all mtv related programs, etc...) and on the other hand, you have this wonderful right wing sentence "if you want jobs, they're plenty for you. What? you dont want to be a street cleaner? you want to be a star or a CEO? Chinese ppl will die to have a job as good as this one! Go f*** yourselves worthless piece of shit".
Reality bites hard once you step out of school.

Of course there's always the solution of cutting educational budgets and move them to warfare. You never can go wrong with warfare, it's an endless money and life consuming industry... those recycling turnovers in the army would make any ceo jealous!
/cynicalmoodoff Hitler took his country out of an economical dead end by making it a beligerent country and your country is doing the same.

It's the combination of two opposing factors that amplify the negative effects of the other. The final drawback mentioned is how Unions are so dominent there that the government has to tip toe around while trying to come up with a solution which means the solution won't come or will be a long time coming.

On that I do agree.

On final note, like DarkDante I don't think one of our country is better than the other or has found a better solution. Each of us has lived in a country with flaws he has learnt to understand and dodge (mostly).
I won't agree with you on muslims = violence. They're not more violent than christian crusaders, chritian missionary forces, armies of god, jews terrorists, Philipines independantists, etc...
It's just that the middle east world is going through a lot of changes and pressure from all around the globe (from religion, to territory pbs and western industries sucking on their ressources).

 

[Cleofis]

Last time I checked France wasn't a socialist led country. The unions are very active in France, but Chirac and his party are Conservatives, they are in no way socialist.

 

[Mattaru]

Disenfranchised people everywhere riot, or cause social problems. I don't know where Rones is seeing riots as a direct link to a more economically conservative state (economically liberal = Adam Smith so dont get confused). I think Farys' interpretation is more reasoned.

As far as the economy goes: oh wait....whats this The New Years Edition of the Economist is my mousepad...

France's 2006 GDP, inflation etc. statistics are about equivalent to Germany's, and similar to England's (which I find funny that its a British publication that wrote the articale by Rones...and a British magazine that I'm looking at). GDP per capita is one of the better in Europe and about average for Western Europe. Nonetheless, there is an unemployment issue in France, mainly because the French economy isn't very adaptable because of government regulation. So privatization can be expected in order to help with the unemployment rate. I don't think it would be incorrect to call the French economy fairly socialist, and I think their slower economic growth is due to government regulation which is under the presumption (also made by Unions) that growth in the economy is intrisically due to some sort of physical or mental oppression. Unions and government can play an important role, an economy dominated by them makes it hard for new business's to emerge and for faster hirings. A degree of protection is needed to stop the evil parts of capitalism no doubt its just depends on how far you take it.

 

[Langly]

Some links to peruse.

Riot article

And

Yay for job discrimination.


Hope you find them interesting.

 

[Farys]

Luckily, Mattaru has the technical words I lack

edit : very good articles though there's always mistakes here and there (we have Rachid Arab as a very well known and appreciated presenter as well as a number of black ... women... why only women, i'm asking myself?).

 

[Mattaru]

Job discrimination: This isnt anything unique to France, its something all multi-ethnic/national states deal with. Its easy for Britian espescially to point fingers when 92% of their population is white...i know that stat is at latest from 2000.

 

[Rones]

As I told you before, if those ppl were riotting because of poverty and unemployment they'd have say so which wasn't the case. Not a single leader stepped up from the crowd to voice their issues.
Moreover, what did they go against : kindergarten, schools and cars. When you riot for food or job or against a government, I can assure you, you dont go against schools or cars.

I don't think you understand riots. They have instigators, but not leaders. Perhaps you are thinking of revolts and revolutions. A riot will target anything and everything that is nearby. As showen in that other link they did indeed target police stations. I didn't read about any targetting schools though.

While the electricution of those two dumb kids was the spark, the movement had its momentum from the unemployed. They likely felt they were getting the short end of the stick and couldn't do anything about it, so here was there chance to be head. Not the best way to go about it, but if all those people were employed and satisfied the riots wouldn't have been so widespread and enduring for weeks.

More and more of your brethens are on welfare and their industries put to a stop because of the rising countries in the East. You have more holidays than they do, you lazy
They work for less $$ too ^^

Many states are working toward reducing the number of people on unemployed welfare. There are laws being enacted that will require 50% employement of welfare recipiants over the next few years. As for jobs heading over seas I would suggest you read The World is Flat. It dicusses this movement, but points out that it has its benefits. The US's strength is a highly educated work force, something the East doesn't have yet. This allows us to sell to them the more advanced products such as airplanes that they can not develop themselves. The East has a surplus of labor atm, but just wait until it starts to run out. Suddenly that cheap labor source will start costing more. :wink:

Hitler took his country out of an economical dead end by making it a beligerent country and your country is doing the same.

Wow, so you are saying the war is boosting our economy? Where were you back when me, DD, and Trippyhippy were arguing about the war. :biggrin: Even I wouldn't go so far as to say the wars boosted the US economy.

 

[Darkdante]

It's just that the middle east world is going through a lot of changes and pressure from all around the globe (from religion, to territory pbs and western industries sucking on their ressources).

Not just there, its also in Africa, the Philipines, Russia, Yugoslavia, France, Middle East, Europe, America (hey lets not forget 9-11), annnnnnnd.... geeez so many places I can't remember them all already.

Anyway like I said violence seems to follow them around, is it a coincedence?

You tell me.

edit:

Heres another interesting little piece to add to the pie.

http://washingtontimes.com/world/20040110-115103-7051r.htm

With the largest Muslim population in Western Europe — estimated at 5 million — and also the largest number of Jews — 600,000 — France has found itself confronting a problem that few European countries have been able to handle with satisfactory results.

 

[Isomiau]

F_ck the french...

 

[Trippyhippy]

Wow, so you are saying the war is boosting our economy? Where were you back when me, DD, and Trippyhippy were arguing about the war. :biggrin: Even I wouldn't go so far as to say the wars boosted the US economy.

I just don't understand you rones.

I would say that the war is about the only good thing that has happened to our economy in about 5 years.

That's it. It has come down to this. I am now OFFICIALLY starting a coalition. We shall call ourselves CPRR.

Citezans for the Partisan reassignment of Rones.

You have a brain AND your a republican... Mind boggling...

 

[Darkdante]

http://www.learnhistory.org.uk/usa/economyww2.htm

The President must have read this article, lol.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0127/p25s02-usec.html

A rout of Saddam Hussein's forces, followed by a minimal peacekeeping effort, would likely improve the US economy.

"The real problem is not the money we spend but the deficit we incur, which leads to higher interest rates down the line. That chokes off private investment,"

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0106-12.htm

Woe is the American public when their President is a short-term thinker.
:nono:

 

[Farys]

I don't think you understand riots. They have instigators, but not leaders. Perhaps you are thinking of revolts and revolutions. A riot will target anything and everything that is nearby. As showen in that other link they did indeed target police stations. I didn't read about any targetting schools though.

They've targeted at least 3 elementary schools (see Mattaru's articles) and only one police station.
But in the end I still fail to see the connection between "France has a socialistic gvt and it's plagued by Unions" and "ppl riot" / "all french take their days off in august".
Your country has endured several riots through the last 50 years and your gvt has always been conservative.

You're totally right when you say riot /= revolt and I may have done the confusion. But riots instigated by a few unemployed unintegrated ppl have no value to me especially when they occur on the false truth that the police has murdered 3 kids. This ain't no LA riot.
As pointed by DDante, France has a long history of immigration like you do in the US, therefore we share the same pbs when it come to deal with poor, uneducated minoritaries.

While the electricution of those two dumb kids was the spark, the movement had its momentum from the unemployed. They likely felt they were getting the short end of the stick and couldn't do anything about it, so here was there chance to be head. Not the best way to go about it, but if all those people were employed and satisfied the riots wouldn't have been so widespread and enduring for weeks.

Same again. How do you expect us to find a solution when your so called perfect conservative and liberal system still struggles with it? How do you integrated minorities that live in dirty and ugly suburbs or hoods? How do you give them a job that won't make them feel they're still dirt under your feet? Give them work in lines of production? Waiter/tress? Janitors?
Where's their hope? In school? They've rejected school because it's another tool of oppression from the gvt like the police force.

Many states are working toward reducing the number of people on unemployed welfare. There are laws being enacted that will require 50% employement of welfare recipiants over the next few years. As for jobs heading over seas I would suggest you read The World is Flat. It dicusses this movement, but points out that it has its benefits. The US's strength is a highly educated work force, something the East doesn't have yet. This allows us to sell to them the more advanced products such as airplanes that they can not develop themselves. The East has a surplus of labor atm, but just wait until it starts to run out. Suddenly that cheap labor source will start costing more. :wink:

And then? Who will take those jobs? Other 3rd world countries?? And when those countries will have a sufficient educated work force, who's gonna take those jobs? You think they'll come back to our own poor ppl that watch everyday ppl in suits and Audi cars? Or do you think, us, western countries will have to make it so that those countries never reach that limit where they won't need us anymore? I think not. Liberal economy relies too much on imperialism for it to be linked with evolution and equality. But that's another debat, I'm afraid

Wow, so you are saying the war is boosting our economy? Where were you back when me, DD, and Trippyhippy were arguing about the war. :biggrin: Even I wouldn't go so far as to say the wars boosted the US economy.

I do say so.
I'm sorry I didnt post on that topic but why would I post anything since I'm French. When dumbfucks like Isomiau bark "fuck the french, if it weren't for us you'd be blahblahblah"? every 2 posts, I don't feel like posting anymore.

Darkdante :

I'm gonna tell you : whenever you see muslims at war, you'll find christians or jews thrown in the middle. I didn't elaborate my point of view earlier because I know a lot of american ppl are very touchy when it comes to religion (and it never fails to amuse us, pagan agnostic french ).
I'll tell you : what about the crusades? what about the apartheid? what about the middle east (in the end jews and muslims are both faulty), Russia!!! (christian orthodox Putine crushing muslim countries), France! (catholic Vichy gvt giving away jews during WWII)?
And finaly America! Where so virtuous christian believers kill (isn't it against God's commandements?) citizens over : birth control, death attempt, being black? I don't see any muslims in the KKK. Though I see armies of christians going to war against a muslim country under the false argument of WMD.

I don't want to go against another round into the debat of Bush's actions. I just wanted to show you that everywhere you look at you'll see ppl killing each other being them jews, christians, muslims or buddhist (free tibet!). Religion can be a cure but IMHO it's 95% of the time a plague for the human race.

 

[Cleofis]

Job discrimination: This isnt anything unique to France, its something all multi-ethnic/national states deal with. Its easy for Britian espescially to point fingers when 92% of their population is white...i know that stat is at latest from 2000.

The problem over here is the concentration of ethnic minorities. The government seems to be contradictory, with one thing they discriminate against minorities and in other ways they enact unfair positive discrimination. I was a politics student but concentrated on British and German politics. Oh and the 1-2 modules of UK-US comparatives, that was boring as hell.

 

[Mattaru]

Ok, I have like an hour before I go take a math quiz and Im bored.

Ill start with Darkdante's last post.

The first two articles are directed at Farys' comment about going to war to boost the economy. This is what I love about the current Republican party, they spend lots of government money! How liberal! WW2 saw a large economic boom because it took place during a time of a depression, the economy was relatively much worse off than it was in the first gulf war or now. Consumer confidence post 9/11 was low and afterwards it gradually rose back up (somewhere GW is thinking "tax cuts did it"), the War in Iraq didn't have much of an effect concerning consumer confidence, and unlike in the first gulf war worries about oil prices were generally internal vs. external (ie Hurricane vs. Saddam is taking over Kuwait). So the only economic impact that is very apparent is actually a bad one because the US is not asking the military-industrial complex to compete with each other, they are awarding contracts based on favoritism or bidding instead of research and development for new military technology. It doesnt take much R&D to bomb brown people in the desert.

Next time you say woe to Keynsian economics you are discursively saying yay Great Depression and outdated classical macroeconomics. I wont elaborate, congrats you can read an article.

On Darkdante's post before that: Well when you are trained in Madras' set up by the US in the cold war in Pakistan or other radical Islam schools in Saudi Arabia, and then funded by rich oil families, you can do a lot. Al Queda's system of communication was in place for a very long time, it used to be a communication system for families to learn how their sons were in a freedom fighter organization...I cant remember the name off the top of my head. Any power that extends past its borders into other nations will tend to spark violence, even more so your argument is circular. They (radical muslims) go to these nations to commit terrorist acts...so of course violence follows them. Seriously, thats the most obvious thing Ive ever heard.

As far as immigration goes. Immigration to nations that are developed by poorer nations IS ALWAYS a logistical and managerial nightmare.

Hi Rones....again.

As far as the French economy goes, Ive already responded. So go there. Espescially because France is in the norm of western europe (which is yes generally quite liberal, at least continental vs Britian)

Im not going to get into a debate on outsourcing really, because it is b/t Farys and you and wasnt one of the original topic parts I think. With that in mind, what does that have to do with France having a poor economy, or at least a comparatively poor one. Btw, illegal immigrants that gather in communities in the united states are often unemployed because their is only so much work. So why is disgruntled foreign and minority workers unique to france.

 

[Aerandir]

Hmm 11 weeks vacation, and unemployment pay for years?

Sign me up!!!

 

[Darkdante]

Next time you say woe to Keynsian economics you are discursively saying yay Great Depression and outdated classical macroeconomics. I wont elaborate, congrats you can read an article.

Did I say that? Keynsian economics and classical macroeconomics is a form of short-term thinking? The price of a barrell of oil today is an example of price-stability? Increasing the federal deficit is an example of sustainability?

And I'm just trying to explain the riots going on in France and to what I see as the cause. Is Christians and the Jews probably as much at fault as the Muslims there for inciting the Muslims into rioting? Most likely. Do you need to resort to riots and violence when things don't go your way in society? Hell no. And as I've stated before it seems like Muslims in general resort to violence FIRST much more often than other people.

I do go to church sometimes, but not highly religious, and I don't see the Muslim way wrong, I just see alot more violence happen when things don't go thier way, and I see that as wrong.

And yes whenever you see Muslims at war you'll see infidels thrown in the middle, they are the very reason Muslims go to war. If everybody was Muslim would you see as much violence? I don't think so.

Again I'm not a Muslim hater, I"m just telling you what I see.