French Capitulation

Fire of Liberty
You know things have fallen apart for PM Dominique de Villepin's efforts to fix the high unemployment rate amongst the 18-26 year olds, when President Chirac, who supported this bill, dresses him down and makes him capitulate to the union bosses and the rioters in the streets.(I'd be wary of hiring these kids, who prefer to go to the streets instead of going to class.)Even his critics have started to pile it on the PM. Here's what the Financial Times had to note:

Critics suspect Mr de Villepin has fallen into the same trap as his hero Napoleon Bonaparte, ousted after leading France to military defeat at Waterloo.

Analysts, opposition Socialists and members of his own centre-right UMP party said he had tried to push reform too far, too fast, in pursuit of his personal ambitions.

"“President Chirac has told him to back down as he was leading the country to the wall,"” said Dominique Moisi, a senior adviser at France'’s Institute for International Relations. "“He tried to convince himself he could be France'’s Margaret Thatcher, but forgot he was only the number two."

It's rather interesting that the critics would say a man like de Villepin is following in the same path of Napoleon especially when the PM is a great admirer and biographer of the "Little Corsican." You'd think he'd learn about these faults and avoid. As for the Margaret Thatcher remark, the PM will never be like the "Iron Lady" because he's chooses to cleft to socialism rather than supporting the economic liberalism of Hayek and Adam Smith(He prefers small half measures.) and has no guts to stand firm to the militantcy of the French labor unions. To me the current PM has demonstrated that if he or his policies are challenged,in this case the unions, he'll take a beating and continue to bark "Thank you Sir, may I have another."(Animal House) I'm guessing that the government of France has just opened the flood gates and will see much more aggression on the side of the unions the next time a law dealing with the economy is passed that they don't like.