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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 11-Apr-06
French President Jacques Chirac caves in to the million-student street protests

Web Log - April, 2006

French President Jacques Chirac caves in to the million-student street protests

In dramatic political reversal, Chirac rescinded a youth employment law on Monday, giving in to riots and demonstrations by over a million people, mostly students.

Monday's TV appearances by French President Jacques Chirac and then by his Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin couldn't have been more dramatic. De Villepin in particular had staked his reputation on the law, vowing last week that he would not back down.

The law, known as the CPE, that was rescinded would have permitted French employers to fire an employee under 26 years of age, if he's been employed for less than 2 years. Amazingly enough, a young French person who once gets a job has virtually a guarantee of holding that job for life. The result is that employers are afraid to hire young people, and the unemployment rate is 9.6% overall, but 22.2% for young people. The new law would have given young people less job security, but would hopefully have reduced youth unemployment.

Fault Line and Generational Conflicts

Fault Line and Generational Conflicts

Kinds of conflicts

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, there are two kinds of mob conflicts:

Fault-line conflicts, where people of one class or religious or national or ethnic group make demands of another class or religious or national or ethnic group. When large demonstrations of this type occur during generational crisis periods, the demonstration is usually the precursor to a crisis war (civil war or external war, depending on the circumstances).

Generational conflicts, where college-age students make political demands of their parents and politicians in their parents' generation. These are caused by "generation gaps," and they're the typical kinds of mobs that occur during "generational awakening" eras, such as 1960s America.

We've been seeing both kinds of mob conflicts recently:

The latest French protests appear to be purely generational, very much in the spirit of the "68ers," the massive student protests that occurred in 1968 during France's awakening era.

On the other hand, when young Muslims rioted and demonstrated in massive numbers in the Paris suburbs last November, those were clearly Muslim versus ethnic French fault-line demonstrations.

Last week and this, over half a million Latinos demonstrated in Los Angeles and other cities, many of them carrying Mexican flags. Once again, these were fault-line demonstrations, Latinos versus non-Latino Americans. (There is a political component, directed at Washington politicians making or not making immigration laws, but this aspect seems secondary to the ethnic fault line aspect.)

As I've been discussing quite a bit lately, the Palestinian government is being controlled college-age children, especially in Gaza where the the median age is 15.6. This mob conflict is directed against Israel. There is a political or generational component, with the young Gazans in conflict with the Hamas elders, but the predominant factor is fault line conflict.

During awakening eras, such as America or France in the 1960s, political / generational conflicts tend to grow in intensity, while fault line conflicts tend to sputter and die.

But in crisis eras, like today, the opposite is true: generational conflicts tend to sputter, while fault line conflicts tend to grow in intensity, and even spiral into a full-scale crisis war.

What's next for France?

There's something that bothers me about the Paris street riots of the last two weeks: They seem way out of proportion to the issue.

Yes, I realize that we have young French people talking about how awful the "Anglo-Saxon" model is, and how the French system is so much more caring, and how awful it would be if some 25 year old lost one 37-hour-per-week job and had to go out and look for another 37 hour per week job. It's a terrible cross for them to bear, I know.

But even so, I just don't see a million students rioting over this one issue. It's too many people for too small an issue.

This brings me back to last autumn's street riots by suburban Muslims, many of them youthful. They were demanding jobs.

A major complaint of the Muslims at that time was that employers were reluctant to hire young Muslims -- for exactly the same reasons that they're reluctant to hire any young person. But it's worse for the Muslims because not only are they young, but also they suffer from ethnic discrimination.

If the new law, the CPE, were implemented, then employers would be more willing to hire young people -- including young Muslims. So the new law would benefit young Muslims, possibly at the expense of the young students who were rioting the last two weeks. Implementing the CPE would eliminate a major source of bias that favors ethnic Frenchmen over Muslims.

If I can figure that out, then so could those students, and their various supporters -- labor unions, educators, and so forth.

Thus, the street riots of the past two weeks were directed more against Muslims than against politicians. The street riots appeared to be a generational conflict, but they really represent an ethnic conflict in disguise.

We see growing fault line conflicts between Muslims and ethnic French in France, Arabs and Jews in the Mideast, and Latinos and non-Latinos in America. From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, all of these conflicts will continue to grow in intensity, and eventually lead to full scale war. And the way things are going in the world, this will occur sooner, rather than later. (11-Apr-06) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 11-Apr-06 French President Jacques Chirac caves in to the million-student street protests

Kinds of conflicts

What's next for France?

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 11-Apr-06
French President Jacques Chirac caves in to the million-student street protests