Deeply Shocked in France

Widespread strikes are set for tomorrow, now called Black Tuesday, in France. President Jacques Chirac's pet, hand-picked successor, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, a noted poet and Napoleonic scholar, proposed a new jobs contract to allow employers to fire unproductive youthful workers within their first 2 years on the job. The impetus was to slightly move France's sclerotic economy toward a market-based one and bring down youth unemployment, which is stuck at over 23%, and near 50% for the largely Muslim immigrants segregated in the suburbs. Larry Kudlow, RCP:

Indeed, at the heart of the French problem is a statist-run socialist economy that is massively overtaxed and overregulated. France's public government sector, for instance, accounts for more than 50 percent of GDP. In other words, private business in France is in the minority.

Added to this, France's top personal tax rate is 48 percent, with a VAT tax of nearly 20 percent. So that means French laborers face a combined 68 percent tax rate on consumption and investment. No wonder France has created less than 3 million jobs over the past twenty years, compared to 31 million in the United States. Economic growth in "cowboy capitalist" America has exceeded that of France's worker paradise by nearly 50 percent.

No Paseran has more here and here. De Villepin's rival Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, an immigrant himself, has proposed an alternate plan, in the Financial Times:

Last night the interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy – Mr de Villepin’s main rightwing rival for the presidency – took a fresh swipe at him over his handling of the crisis. Mr Sarkozy used a speech in Douai to criticise Mr de Villepin for not negotiating with unions before launching the CPE, which would let companies fire people aged under 26 relatively easily during a two-year trial.

Mr Sarkozy said: “Social dialogue is essential for successful reform.” Instead he proposed a more ambitious policy: a single contract for all ages, with phased protection according to the length of time at a company.

Meanwhile, French President Jacques Chirac was last seen flouncing out of an EU meeting in a huff, as a prominent French businessman chose to make his speech in English, as it is "the language of business". Per the BBC, Le President was "deeply shocked" to hear a Frenchman speak English, as the French have been "fighting for a long time to establish the presence of the French language at the....Olympic Games, where it was contested for a while.

France....exceptionally silly, deeply shocked.