France Defeated in its Own Capital

Jacques Chirac effectively has completely undermined the authority of his chosen successor, the fop poetaster Dominique de Villepin [I dated a French female doctor named Dominique who was even cuter than the PM!], and given the trade unions and the post-modern layabout students a victory.

Brilliantined stick-insect PM Dominique has just done a compleat abject submission on French television, but is it enough?

Speaking in a live television address, Mr de Villepin said the president had accepted his proposed changes. Mr de Villepin has seen his popularity fall during the crisis. The prime minister said he was convinced that the only way of addressing joblessness in France was a better balance between flexibility for employers and security for employees.

"For some time the action of the government had been guided by one objective, to provide thousands of young people from our society with opportunities for jobs," he said. I wanted to act very quickly because the dramatic situation and the despair of a number of young people warranted it. This was not understood by everyone, I'm sorry to say," said Mr de Villepin, who saw his poll ratings plummet during the two-month crisis.

The BBC's Alasdair Sandford in Paris says it is a significant climbdown for the French government and is particularly humiliating for Mr de Villepin who had staked much of his personal credibility on the measure.

But one must remember that it is exam season and the students who don't feel like all-niters and cramming may now call the shots.

Student leader Julie Coudry called for protesters to lift blockades at dozens of universities so students could prepare for their end-of-year exams.

"The CPE is dead, the CPE is well and truly finished," she said.

But some students appeared unwilling to abandon their protest. Many had wanted the entire law to be revoked, not just the article introducing the employment contract.

"Our demands have not really been met," Lise Prunier, a student at the University of Paris-Jussieu told the Associated Press.

It appears that the slackers and thrill-seekers may want more adrenaline and less lucubrations that might give them a better grade and, hence, better shots at a real job.

But those familiar with the ossified French educational establishment know that the only schools worth graduating from in France are the elite "grandes ecoles," which assure their grads BOTH a good education and access to high-level applications inside and outside France. "Les Grandes Ecoles" are top-flight and provide real educations on a par or better than Harvard or Oxford. But only a few thousand qualify.

The others are condemned to be grads of the post-modernist diploma-mills like the Sorbonne and Nanterre which give their grads plenty of attitude and social poses to assume, but little training for jobs in France's booming private sector. But, of course, the millions of jobs for state petits fonctionnaires must also be filled, and these rad wingnuts are chaise-fodder for lifer numbnut bureaucratic cubbyholes.

But Jacques and Dominique have been dressed down and humiliated before the eyes of France and "tout le monde." These two jackals deserve even more pain and suffering for their cowardice and general nitwittery, but the CPE fiasco will do for now.