Liberté, égalité, merde

Let’s make sure we have this straight.

What happens when the government decides that, once hired, no employee may be fired?

Easy: A youth unemployment rate of 23%.

Why?

Also easy: Because employers are quite rationally concerned that if they increase their employment, and then experience a business downturn, they are entirely unable to trim their labor costs by firing their least-productive, now unnecessary workers. Hilarity -- or bankruptcy -- ensues.

So what happens when the government decides that, to help dilute the unwillingness of employers to hire, they will be permitted to fire employees who have worked less than two years?

Well, if the government is France, then THIS:

All of which leads Dominic Hilton, writing in the Toronto Star, to ask:

Am I the only one who thinks France is nuttier than frangipane?

Here is how I understand last week's wave of marches, riots and blockades in the land of loitering existentially in smoky cafés while making meaningful hand gestures:

Lots of over-educated youths with too much black in their wardrobes are desperate to dress up in balaclavas and bandannas and torch things because (now let me word this correctly) they are disillusioned that their government wants to help them get jobs, because when you get a job there is a big danger you might one day lose it, especially if you are crap at it.

I could have sworn that not long ago French youths were rioting because, thanks to workplace-protection laws so rigid you could dry your pantalons on them, no one under the age of 65 can break into the job market (unless their grand-père is head of the Union of Permanently Picketing Fonctionnaires, in which case there is always room for one more shop steward).

Read it all, HERE.