Huge anti-labor reform protests rock France

Thousands of people across France have taken to the streets to voice their protest against a newly proposed labor reform. Some rallies took a violent turn with police deploying tear gas to disperse and dozens reported injured.

• 10 April 2016
  08:05 GMTAt least eight people have been arrested "for throwing stones, carrying prohibited weapons, burglary and vandalism"during the Paris protests, the city council said.
  
  
  
• 08:05 GMTHundreds of people have staged a protest in front of the residence of French PM Manuel Valls, BFMTV reported. The demonstrators were then blocked by police forces, who deployed tear gas against them.
  "Paris, rise up," chanted the demonstrators.
  
  
  
• 09 April 2016
  16:06 GMTAt least 8,000 people gathered in the streets of Toulouse.

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  Read more @: Huge anti-labor reform protests rock France
  
  

In Paris, groups of protesters marching from Republic Square to Nation Square via Bastille Square were surrounded by increasing numbers of riot police as they proceeded along the route. The atmosphere on the march was tense, with lawyers from the French Lawyers’ Union (SAF) handing out leaflets advising demonstrators on how to react if arrested.

In Rennes, where several thousand protesters marched, riot police charged the marchers and fired large quantities of tear gas and stun grenades. Demonstrators set up flaming barricades in areas near the Lices neighborhood, where street fighting occurred. There were reports of firemen coming under fire from birdshot until police charges cleared the area. According to the news program 20 Minutes, 18 people were injured in Rennes, including five with critical wounds such as skull fractures and eye injuries resulting from police baton attacks.
Tens of thousands of people marched in Marseille near the Old Port and in Toulouse, where student protesters joined a demonstration of actors at the Toulouse National Theater (TNT) before occupying Capitole Square.
In all, several hundreds of thousands of people marched in some 200 cities across France against the El Khomri Law and the broader austerity agenda of the European Union, defying the state of emergency imposed by the PS after the November 13 terror attacks in Paris.

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Read more @: Huge anti-labor reform protests rock France

A new labor law reform bill has been introduced in France and since March massive protests have been going underway in France. The new labor law would increase the workday to 46 hours, reduce payouts to employees, weaken worker protection laws so workers can be fired more easily. There is also talk that this movement that is sweeping France is about something bigger, that the dominant 'Socialist Party' has embraced neo-liberalism and that there is little other alternative option for the French people to embrace. Many who are a part of this movement are calling for the end to neo-liberalism and the creation of an alternate democratic system.

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Demonstrations around France against a draft labor reform law turned violent on Saturday, with at least seven police officers injured and 17 people arrested in Paris and Rennes, which saw the worst clashes.

Following changes to soften the bill, the broad-based protest movement has waned from its March 31 peak, when turnout estimates ranged between 390,000 and 1.2 million, suggesting President Francois Hollande may be able to ride out the storm.

Nonetheles, some 120,000 took part in Saturday's sixth day of protests around the country, according to the Interior Ministry.

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French labor reform protests turn violent | Reuters

TheDemSocialist said:

Read more @: Huge anti-labor reform protests rock France
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Read more @: Huge anti-labor reform protests rock France

A new labor law reform bill has been introduced in France and since March massive protests have been going underway in France. The new labor law would increase the workday to 46 hours, reduce payouts to employees, weaken worker protection laws so workers can be fired more easily. There is also talk that this movement that is sweeping France is about something bigger, that the dominant 'Socialist Party' has embraced neo-liberalism and that there is little other alternative option for the French people to embrace. Many who are a part of this movement are calling for the end to neo-liberalism and the creation of an alternate democratic system. [/FONT][/COLOR]

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Few things are more hilarious than French youth angrily insisting that they remain highly unemployed :lol:


Not to challenge your source, but I'm interested in how the work day is going to be increased to 46 hours. Are they going to be flying around the world with the sun while working?

cpwill said:

Few things are more hilarious than French youth angrily insisting that they remain highly unemployed :lol:


Not to challenge your source, but I'm interested in how the work day is going to be increased to 46 hours. Are they going to be flying around the world with the sun while working?

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46 hours a week.

TheDemSocialist said:

46 hours a week.

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I read where they actually put in a measure that would allow unions to negotiate a work week that would allow 46 hours a week "over two weeks" (so, basically, they could surge work at some points, and let down at others). So, it didn't change the law for regular workers, it just allowed unions to negotiate that for themselves, if that's what the members wanted (after all, unions negotiate what members want - right?).



Giving greater flexibility to unions! Horrors! It'll be Randian Objectivism, next. :lol:




But more to the point - the more expensive you make it to hire someone, and the more impossible you make it to fire them, the more you simply ensure that they will never be hired in the first place. Witness the refusal of the French Public to accept that reality.

This is what happens when a bunch of "progressives" intellectually soil themselves and can no longer sustain such lazy and noncompetitive labor practices.

I find it funny that things resort to violence and riots when French people are asked to work like Americans.

digsbe said:

This is what happens when a bunch of "progressives" intellectually soil themselves and can no longer sustain such lazy and noncompetitive labor practices.

I find it funny that things resort to violence and riots when French people are asked to work like Americans.

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Orrr. this is what happens when a population is fed up with neo-liberal bull**** and fed up with 2-3 strong political parties that dont represent them in their parliamentary democracy...

digsbe said:

I find it funny that things resort to violence and riots when French people are asked to work like Americans.

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Don't tell me, you work 4 jobs, go to college and only got one kidney? I've seen you on Sally.

We don't too badly for productivity:

Increasing Productivity & the National Living Wage | Starboard Thinking

indeed, many previous OECD and INSEE reports have given France the highest productivity rates in the world (be productive and look them up for yourself).

We maybe don't need to work ridiculous US hours just to scrape together a decent living like many of your compatriots do, shameful in a rich nation.

Some people can see beyond the neo-liberal claptrap and realise that there are alternatives to the laissez-faire capitalist model which is once again in global crisis. I was previously a PS supporter but they're trying to do a Tony Blair/Tony Giddens third way and it won't wash with the French. I love my work and I work hard when I'm there but I have a life too, and when it's time to go home, I'm off. I don't need to work 60 hours a week to earn a decent living.

Urethra Franklin said:

~ We don't too badly for productivity:

Increasing Productivity & the National Living Wage | Starboard Thinking ~

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Sadly the picture in the UK isn't so rosy - we're working more and more hours and becoming less productive though apparently we've always lagged behind the other G7 countries.

I'd prefer we were offered what the Swedes have been experimenting with which is 6 hour days but doing the same amount of work - tired workers doing long hours doesn't help anyone.

TheDemSocialist said:

More:

French labor reform protests turn violent | Reuters

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To be fair most protests of this size in France turn violent.. There are just some countries where violence and protests go hand in hand.. France and Greece lead the pack and have for decades if not centuries. Hell modern France came about based on a protest turn violent...

As for the labour reforms... they are needed pure and simple. It has nothing to do with neo-liberalism but common sense. The balance between workers and employers has always been a problem. In the US the employers have massive power where as in France it is the workers. It should not be like that. There has to be a balance.

By balance I mean no one should be happy. Take my own country of Denmark. We had the French situation before the 1980s and slowly but surely changed. Back when I was young, an unemployment of 8% was considered full employment. Now days it is near 2% which is one of the lowest in the industrialized world. What changed? Well for one it got a hell of a lot easier to fire people, both in the private and public sectors. But it also got easier to just leave a job if you wanted and that meant the employment market got far more fluid. The unions lost power yes, but not in such a way that compromised the rights of workers. Some would of course still claim that unions were still too strong in Denmark (I would be one of them), but at the same time companies dont need to get permission from a court system to fire people... like in France and Spain. The Danish system aint perfect by any means.. you still have legacy union rules that basically force people into unions in certain old companies.. this pisses me off, but having a structural unemployment fall from 8% to 2% is huge.

I would think that structural unemployment in Spain is at least 10%, where as in France it is at least 7%... and that is because of the inflexibility of the labour market and the rules around it.