Sun, 22 November 2009
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The debate over the new jobs contract for young people is more than just an argument over labour policy - it's about what the French think the government should do to shield them from the 'precariousness' of life.Last week I got one of these 'Help a stranger' emails about a 10-month old baby girl with brain cancer who needs an operation her parents can't pay for. Apparently if I forward the email to three other people, AOL will make a contribution to her operation fund.
I'm 95 percent sure it's a hoax. But not 100 percent sure.
Why? Because Americans believe it's possible for a hospital to refuse an operation to a 10-month old baby girl dying of brain cancer if her parents don't have proper medical insurance. Like in that Denzel Washington movie, 'John Q', where he takes an emergency room hostage until they give his son the heart operation he can't afford.
I don't know if American hospitals really let sick children die. But the point is that Americans believe it's possible — that's why these email scams work or why people would pay to see 'John Q'.
And that's what I call la précarité: believing you'll literally be left by the wayside to die if you can't take care of yourself.
But this past week has given me a chance to see the French definition of la précarité, which is apparently your government failing to guarantee a job-for-life to every young person straight out of school.
A typical call to action against the new 'more flexible' jobs contracts
The CPE debate
'La précarité' is the word used over and over again by those people who spent the past week protesting the government's new jobs contract, the Contrat première embauche or CPE.
As a foreigner following this debate, I hear more than just an argument over jobs policy — for me, it highlights a fundamental philosophical difference between the French and us 'Anglo-Saxons', one that revolves around this idea of the precariousness of life and how much the government is supposed to do to shield us from that.
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