L'Oreal Plays the Anglo-Saxon Game. Why Won't You?

Chirac abandons youth job law after weeks of rioting

Can anyone explain why French students were protesting over something that has no discernable effect on them in any way? I mean...it's not as if they hold any jobs that they can be dismissed from.

The empirical evidence is there as well. I'm not usually one to shout about the state of the UK economy, but it seems that it is eminently possible to adduce the respective condition of the French and British economies by the fact that 300,000 French citizens are desperately seeking employment in Britain, whilst 3 British subjects try their luck amongst the burnt-out car ridden banlieues.

L'Oreal, Total, and the 300,000 all seem to have grasped that globalisation will not wait for a society frightened of losing a sheltered dirigiste arrangement it can no longer afford. Not for the first time though, French politicians, at the first sign of mob rule have displayed their lack of personal political volition and comprehensively failed to persuade a society of that truth. Will the 5th Republic go the same way as its predecessors? I suspect so. History suggests the French establishment never acts until it is too late.