Friday, March 31, 2006

Chirac folding under Pressure

Fire of Liberty

Well it seems that French President Jacques Chirac has proven once again that he's not cut out for taking on the rowdy students and the rabble-rousers of the militant labor unions because he's stepped(After letting Villepin get tarred by the crowd - Makes Chirac look like the good guy)into the fray and has offered to water down the CPE law. The only problem with Chirac's gesture of goodwill is that he has demonstrated to the labor unions that if you can get lots of the folks in the streets protesting and call for a general strike you can get concessions from the government. As the Financial Times notes, the unions promptly rejected the offer by Chirac and have called for yet another strike. I guess they feel that if they made Chirac jump like he did this past Tuesday, an even bigger protest will cause the government to drop the CPE law all together. I hope the French government stands firm but from the looks of it, they're more than likely going to fold and face an economic death of high unemployment via the burdensome welfare state they keep on propping up.

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