In France, an Economic Bullet Goes Unbitten

In France, an Economic Bullet Goes Unbitten - New York Times: "It was, he said, something that politicians from all parties knew was necessary, but that was unlikely to be popular with voters. The answer, he said, was for parties in the major Continental economies to accept the unpopularity that would come from economic change, so that each government would expect to be replaced at the next election by a government that would then offend voters by adopting more such legislation, and in turn be replaced.

The best chance for that, he said privately, was in Germany. He saw France as far less likely to have it work, in part because even the supposedly conservative parties were becoming more and more opposed to change.

He got the unpopularity part right, a fact that was clear both in the inability of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder to win re-election last fall in Germany, and in yesterday's abrupt surrender by the French president, Jacques Chirac, as he revoked a law his government had put into effect aimed at making it easier to hire and fire workers under 26.

It was intended in part as a response to last year's riots in poor, often Arab, suburbs of Paris, where joblessness is high and hope low. The idea was that employers, freed of the need to keep bad hires on the payroll, would be more willing to employ young Arabs."