The beginning, obviously, but how far back do I go? Because
"first there were the dinosaurs, but they all got big and fat and all died out, and then The Arabs came and they all bought Mercedes-Benzes..."
I'll work from now and go backwards.
The school party was meant to be this evening, right now in fact. But it has been cancelled. Or at least, postponed. Which is a shame, because it was going to be a lot of fun for all involved.
*All the above was Thursday 23rd, when my Internet connection sort of decided to die out on me.*
Now it's Sunday, and Friday has happened. Oh and Saturday too but nothing much happened to this then.
This is all about this messy CPE business.
There are several things that need talking about here. What is the CPE? What do people think about it and what are they doing? What does that mean for me?
Oh dear oh deary me, it seems I've started writing as if it were for the Bac. Or something. Shit.
CPE stands (at the moment and in this context) for Contrat Première Embauche (or Emploi, whichchangess the meaning completely, but no-one seems able to agree which it is. That happens a lot in this story (For yes, it is a story!).)
Now, here are thecharacteristicss of this thing, as they have been told to me over the last few weeks by various people and papers and such:
with this contract, an employer can fire an employee:
-for no reason
-for any reason, even ones clearly outlawed by various working laws (like racism and sexism and them)
-with no warning
-with two weeks' warning
-with noindemnitiess
-withindemnitiess (2 months' pay)
-with indemnities (2 months' pay and unemployment benefits for 4 months after that)
-with indemnities (7 months' pay)
-the employeereceivess no pay until the end of the 2-year contract so if they get fired before that they get no money errr...Noo, this is clearly bollocks.Thee way pay works is that every month you get your salary.Thee person who told me this seems to be a quite an induhvidual)
-this contract only applies to companies with fewer than 20 employees
-this contract only applies to companies with more than 20 employees
-this contract only applies to people without their Bac.
-this contract applies to everyone, or will eventually, regardless of age or diplomas
-this contract only applies to people under the age of 26
-this contract only applies to people under the age of 26 and above the age of 18
-this contract is alreadyenforceablee law
-this contract is not yetenforceablee law and is yet to go through Parliament
-this contract is being reviewed
I feel I need not go on. Just that little list shows that mass hysteria and exaggeration has set in, rendering the whole argument pointless, because the facts have been completely ignored (by both pro- and anti- parties alike).
Whatever the case may be in all of those variables, it all comes down to this:
In France, until recently, it was very hard to fire people, because of the way things (don't) work here as regards economy generally. All this new contract is going to change is the fact that France will now be set up exactly the same as the rest of the world, which is going to happen anyway, sooner or later, because of the globalization of Good Ideas.
Under the old system, as I say, it was virtually impossible to fire people for Being A Dolt. Now, itis goingg to be a lot easier. This will shift the useless people out of the cushy life-long employment (as opposed to career, which implies progress) and get them to work harder to keep their jobs and thus make things improve. It's basically going to filter better workers into better jobs more easily. Which is a Good Thing.
Under the old system, as I say, it was virtually impossible to fire people for Being A Dolt. Now, itis goingg to be a lot easier. This will shift the useless people out of the cushy life-long employment (as opposed to career, which implies progress) and get them to work harder to keep their jobs and thus make things improve. It's basically going to filter better workers into better jobs more easily. Which is a Good Thing.
What it ISN'T is a huge conspiracy by the Government to try and force even more young people into poverty, as the latest propaganda would have onebelieve. Itt is exactly the opposite. It is destined to replace endless scattered stages with actual previous work experience credit that goes on you CV saying "this person is not a useless twit". The only change I might make would be to reduce the probation time to one instead of two years, but that's just me. I'm not the Government, however, and I haven't asked lots of reputable economists, because I'm just a lazy sod. I like a challenge though, so I reckon on the whole it is a good idea.
It seems, however, that I am in a minority in this (Well, no, actually, because Parliament voted this thing through (albeit (apparently) by using somewhat dubious by-passes to get it done quicker (Good Thing again, though)) and therefore the majority like it, because that's the way democracy works. It's the Left's own silly fault the Right got in at the last election because they're all too divided into thirteenMickeyy-mouse joke parties all saying they're purest and all getting knocked out after the first round of the badly-designed elections).
There have been demonstrations going off Left, Right and Centre (literally, even the fonctionnaires have been threatening this (somewhat ironically if you know anything about anything)). And it's not like usually when there's one and then everyone tells the people who disagree "look mate you're wrong we're right this is a good idea and just deal with it and shut up". Oh no, this is being done "properly". They really aren't giving up. Really, next Tuesday it's the transport people.(I don't reckon they should have the right to go on strike, but of course, I'm wrong.)
And of course, in the standard way, it's all been going horribly wrong. Cities are being torn up by this thing, especially Paris. It reminds of the problems they had at the end of last year (what the hell happened to that news item eh?). It seem typically French at the moment (please correct me) to just burn cars and smash windows whenever you're displeased (like the dock-workers in Strasbourg about a month (?) ago).
My experience (of course) of it all is mainly with the students, who will be most affected by the change (That's another part of it all - this new thing constitutes a Change, and regardless of the fact that it is a Good One, People tend to fear Changes generally and thus dislike them.). The main talk of last week was about the Occupation of the University.They totally trashed the place. Which of course makes them look unbelievably credible and intelligent in the eyes of the important people. There was also the sad news of the death of one guy I used to eat lunch with last year, who turned out to be a heroin addict (you really couldn't tell) who OD'd. At least, that was the best guess around on the news, but because they stopped talking about it before the autopsy reports were published (that evening), no-one really knows for sure (again with the rumours in this affair) how he died. They just found him in the halls of the University one morning, stone dead. No needle marks either, which makes it even more interesting for the journalist scum.
At my school, there have been several big(ish) events in the past weeks. Usually, the place basically runs itself (luckily, too because our Gestapo are seriously understaffed, which is now showing), but this impending doom that is better work for better workers seems to have gotten several personsmostt agitated.
On Friday of last week (17th) There was yet another of these demos going off outside, and accordingly theadministrationn, fearing for the safety of both students and property, locked the gates so that no-one that wasn't supposed to could get in. Everyone who was supposed to already had. The reverse side of the coin was that no-one could get out. That wasn't too much of a problem, though,becausee no-one in their right mind would want to and no-one really needed to...
- So she goes and writes a sign that says "Locked in" / "I am locked in" (I'm not sure, I heard both. That doesn't make a huge difference but the punctuation would and I wasn't told what it was... go figure)
- So she starts writing a text of some kind (not sure again, this was from a teacher, do with that what you will.)
- So she does both of the above and starts shouting.
-ditto without the shouting.
(Anybody sympathise with the confusion I'm feeling as regards establishing facts to base an opinion on?)
In any case, the headmistress found out and disapproved. Again, where she was at the time varies from standing write next to the incident to completely away from the school. In any case, no matter what the variables, the stupident was expelled for 2 (or 3, depending) days. This of course upset quite a few of her friends, and quite a few people who didn't have a clue. So on came the "silent protest", white arm bands and all. Although, come to think of it,itt wasn't really all that "silent". They really made quite a racket in lunch. I almost couldn't hear myself being skeptical. If they had offered me a torn piece of lab-coat I'd have blown my nose in it, but they had noticed me in my corner of friends trying to tell them that one shouldn't do politics in school and that provoking the administration like that was just foolish, so they left me alone. The menacing growls helped a bit, too.
That was Monday 20th. On theTuesday came the proper demos in school. I don't know exactly who it was or how many of them there were, but reports suggest less than 50, just shouting a bit loudly, sitting in the courtyard singing and walking around the halls disrupting classes a bit. I don't care, I was being a good law-abiding (hey we did sign the rules!Aa promise is a promise) student. Plus now we'll get loads of sympathy points for the difficulty it caused as we tried to concentrate on the geography test. Bonus. So that lasted about an hour altogether, and simultaneously (see what wonderful words you can speel if you just pay attention in class and read a bit? I rest my case) (yes I did mean to spell "speel", it's Dutch for "play" ...Gett it? haha) on the other side of the building were the real demos against the CPE and the government generally, so it was sort of stereo-effect. Pretty loud. Pretty pathetic. Pretty ugly.
Wednesday went down without too much real trouble (come on, you don't really expect people to annoy a school for only a half-day, do you? Plus they were all shagged out from beating up cops (you should see the injury statistics!) the previous day, they need a break now and then and in between. Not easy being on strike.).
Thursday was when it started actually affecting me, and for "affecting" read "bloody well annoying". Some idiots went around town advertising (putting signs up and all, apparently) the fact that our school was having a party that evening and inviting everyone to come gatecrash. Admin found out and cancelled the party for fear of safety issues, because they hadn't thought of hiring Securitas or someone, and the only thing between the masses and the classes would have been a few teachers. So good call, best of a bad situation crap and rather irritating.
Friday we were all a bit quieter again (again, can't expect them to express their opinions violently 2 days in a row now can we? I mean it's not like they actually believe in it or anything is it? Plus nobody works Fridays nowadays (which reminds me of that Japanese Ambassador in Paris who made an official offer of 6 billion Yen for theFrenchh to give Japan the secret to getting 35 hours into a single day) so they can hardly go on strike then.) Then it was the weekend, when everyone needs their lie-in of course. That's the trouble with France, we're all too lazy (seriously, I should write sometime about Sunday lunch/Dinner in this country). Hence people fearing for their jobs if it's slightly easier to fire them for being lazy. See, this all fits together eh? The only thing of note was the pathetic attempt at a blockade put up by the anti-s. Which got mowed down by us lot who were much less disciplined about "make peace not war". I say set the pace not bar, or something. There were at least two reasonably serious injuries, which is not bad considering the number of people involved (this means either: there were so few that 2 is a fair share to make it seem impressive, or their were so many that only 2 is a relief that it wasn't worse). I can tell you some poor hippy's short-sharp-four-letter-interjection vocabulary was somewhat expanded in the thirty seconds it took me to push through. There were all gone by 10 past 8 anyway. Oh and they keep having their stupid General Assemblies, all 50 of them, hey really are cute thinking they're all big and stuff and coming to decisions and stuff. Aw...
So Monday came around again, and in the evening it is announced that because Marc Bloch University, having been invaded, had voted to invade our school (we've made a bit of jealousy recently with the publishing of our Bac. results in the local paper, and the poor turn-out to riots, amongst other things), lessons would be cancelled all day Tuesday. Hey, I'm not cmplaining, my attitude towards the whole situation is "It's a fuck-up, it'll sort itself out eventually, in the meantime... MILK IT!" So Tuesday was fun. Again, wednesday-thursday same deal as before, cool-off time, plus the weather wasn't terribly great. (Apart from TPE of course, but I'm sick of that so I probably won't mention it any more than that, except maybe to say that all these days of cancelled school are moving everybody else's around and I'm just glad mine's over!)
Friday, however, was interesting. Ten o'clock comes around and a huge crowd forms at the front gate. It's the demo, of course, come to invade. So we close the gates. Then the hippies have their sit-down. I counted (oh yes, that's how few they were, countable from close up), there were exactly 47 of them at their most numerous stage.Now they had this sign up, saying "Résistance", which was big, but it wasn't terribly clever, because it led to quite a bit of confusion as to their position. Clearly they were being annoying and generally in-the-way, but who it was aimed at wasn't entirely obvious. Were they resisting the evil fascist government and the CPE, or were they resisting the invasion (like everyone else, who were being much more effective just standing up), or both? Feeling provocative, I would have loved to have had signing-making equipment on me right there to write out "Collaboration over here" or something.. But I am too much of a "don'tgiveafuckist" to be that prepared, and I resent myself for it. Keeps me safe though. So after that escalated a bit, with lots of silly shouting, admin decided to pull the plug. After all, they could hardly let us back into the building (oh yes, they had EVACUATED, sirens and all) now that we were all out and stuff. Too dangerous really. So school was cancelled for the rest of the day. Fun fun fun. Second time in a week.
Now, Monday 3rd April, there is much talk of school being cancelled again tomorrow as well. The plan apparently is for the Marc Bloch Uni lot to come round and barricade the gates properly, with planks of wood and things. Big heavy things. Which will have to be pretty impressive if it's to work. Entirely illegal of course. So if the police get called again (oh yeah, apparently it got quite a bit worse out in the street after I scarpered (hey, I am in no physical condition to start getting into brawls yet) off on that Friday), I have at least two teachers' express recommendation to "stay the hell away". So I've sent out plenty of requests to friends to send me txts and call me BEFORE I leave tomorrow if it turns out that would be pointless. Oh yeah, my maths teacher's on strike (despite Chirac's improvement of the law, which he had said would be enough to convince him, the lying rotter), so I get the morning off. Yeah, start at 10 usually, but if he's not there, that means I start at one (you see, MILKING IT) in the afternoon. Life is sweet. Plus the geography teacher's off on jury-duty for TPE, which means of my 6 hours I'm meant to have tomorrow, only 2 are still happening (1-2 german and 4-5 french), so it'll be no big loss if I don't go at all. And the rest, (apart from the funny spelling sometimes which is a glitch in the spell-checker, i've just realised, so anything wrong I can blame on that because it is the truth), as they, say, is history. Or at least, it will be.
It seems, however, that I am in a minority in this (Well, no, actually, because Parliament voted this thing through (albeit (apparently) by using somewhat dubious by-passes to get it done quicker (Good Thing again, though)) and therefore the majority like it, because that's the way democracy works. It's the Left's own silly fault the Right got in at the last election because they're all too divided into thirteenMickeyy-mouse joke parties all saying they're purest and all getting knocked out after the first round of the badly-designed elections).
There have been demonstrations going off Left, Right and Centre (literally, even the fonctionnaires have been threatening this (somewhat ironically if you know anything about anything)). And it's not like usually when there's one and then everyone tells the people who disagree "look mate you're wrong we're right this is a good idea and just deal with it and shut up". Oh no, this is being done "properly". They really aren't giving up. Really, next Tuesday it's the transport people.(I don't reckon they should have the right to go on strike, but of course, I'm wrong.)
And of course, in the standard way, it's all been going horribly wrong. Cities are being torn up by this thing, especially Paris. It reminds of the problems they had at the end of last year (what the hell happened to that news item eh?). It seem typically French at the moment (please correct me) to just burn cars and smash windows whenever you're displeased (like the dock-workers in Strasbourg about a month (?) ago).
My experience (of course) of it all is mainly with the students, who will be most affected by the change (That's another part of it all - this new thing constitutes a Change, and regardless of the fact that it is a Good One, People tend to fear Changes generally and thus dislike them.). The main talk of last week was about the Occupation of the University.They totally trashed the place. Which of course makes them look unbelievably credible and intelligent in the eyes of the important people. There was also the sad news of the death of one guy I used to eat lunch with last year, who turned out to be a heroin addict (you really couldn't tell) who OD'd. At least, that was the best guess around on the news, but because they stopped talking about it before the autopsy reports were published (that evening), no-one really knows for sure (again with the rumours in this affair) how he died. They just found him in the halls of the University one morning, stone dead. No needle marks either, which makes it even more interesting for the journalist scum.
At my school, there have been several big(ish) events in the past weeks. Usually, the place basically runs itself (luckily, too because our Gestapo are seriously understaffed, which is now showing), but this impending doom that is better work for better workers seems to have gotten several personsmostt agitated.
On Friday of last week (17th) There was yet another of these demos going off outside, and accordingly theadministrationn, fearing for the safety of both students and property, locked the gates so that no-one that wasn't supposed to could get in. Everyone who was supposed to already had. The reverse side of the coin was that no-one could get out. That wasn't too much of a problem, though,becausee no-one in their right mind would want to and no-one really needed to...
(Being continued Sunday 2nd April)
Except, of course, there just had to be one person who really wanted to get out (of her mind). She's one of those arty types. Yes I do realise what I just said. Duh. Now comes a bit with several different versions, and I'll tell you all of them and you can take your pick.- So she goes and writes a sign that says "Locked in" / "I am locked in" (I'm not sure, I heard both. That doesn't make a huge difference but the punctuation would and I wasn't told what it was... go figure)
- So she starts writing a text of some kind (not sure again, this was from a teacher, do with that what you will.)
- So she does both of the above and starts shouting.
-ditto without the shouting.
(Anybody sympathise with the confusion I'm feeling as regards establishing facts to base an opinion on?)
In any case, the headmistress found out and disapproved. Again, where she was at the time varies from standing write next to the incident to completely away from the school. In any case, no matter what the variables, the stupident was expelled for 2 (or 3, depending) days. This of course upset quite a few of her friends, and quite a few people who didn't have a clue. So on came the "silent protest", white arm bands and all. Although, come to think of it,itt wasn't really all that "silent". They really made quite a racket in lunch. I almost couldn't hear myself being skeptical. If they had offered me a torn piece of lab-coat I'd have blown my nose in it, but they had noticed me in my corner of friends trying to tell them that one shouldn't do politics in school and that provoking the administration like that was just foolish, so they left me alone. The menacing growls helped a bit, too.
That was Monday 20th. On theTuesday came the proper demos in school. I don't know exactly who it was or how many of them there were, but reports suggest less than 50, just shouting a bit loudly, sitting in the courtyard singing and walking around the halls disrupting classes a bit. I don't care, I was being a good law-abiding (hey we did sign the rules!Aa promise is a promise) student. Plus now we'll get loads of sympathy points for the difficulty it caused as we tried to concentrate on the geography test. Bonus. So that lasted about an hour altogether, and simultaneously (see what wonderful words you can speel if you just pay attention in class and read a bit? I rest my case) (yes I did mean to spell "speel", it's Dutch for "play" ...Gett it? haha) on the other side of the building were the real demos against the CPE and the government generally, so it was sort of stereo-effect. Pretty loud. Pretty pathetic. Pretty ugly.
Wednesday went down without too much real trouble (come on, you don't really expect people to annoy a school for only a half-day, do you? Plus they were all shagged out from beating up cops (you should see the injury statistics!) the previous day, they need a break now and then and in between. Not easy being on strike.).
Thursday was when it started actually affecting me, and for "affecting" read "bloody well annoying". Some idiots went around town advertising (putting signs up and all, apparently) the fact that our school was having a party that evening and inviting everyone to come gatecrash. Admin found out and cancelled the party for fear of safety issues, because they hadn't thought of hiring Securitas or someone, and the only thing between the masses and the classes would have been a few teachers. So good call, best of a bad situation crap and rather irritating.
Friday we were all a bit quieter again (again, can't expect them to express their opinions violently 2 days in a row now can we? I mean it's not like they actually believe in it or anything is it? Plus nobody works Fridays nowadays (which reminds me of that Japanese Ambassador in Paris who made an official offer of 6 billion Yen for theFrenchh to give Japan the secret to getting 35 hours into a single day) so they can hardly go on strike then.) Then it was the weekend, when everyone needs their lie-in of course. That's the trouble with France, we're all too lazy (seriously, I should write sometime about Sunday lunch/Dinner in this country). Hence people fearing for their jobs if it's slightly easier to fire them for being lazy. See, this all fits together eh? The only thing of note was the pathetic attempt at a blockade put up by the anti-s. Which got mowed down by us lot who were much less disciplined about "make peace not war". I say set the pace not bar, or something. There were at least two reasonably serious injuries, which is not bad considering the number of people involved (this means either: there were so few that 2 is a fair share to make it seem impressive, or their were so many that only 2 is a relief that it wasn't worse). I can tell you some poor hippy's short-sharp-four-letter-interjection vocabulary was somewhat expanded in the thirty seconds it took me to push through. There were all gone by 10 past 8 anyway. Oh and they keep having their stupid General Assemblies, all 50 of them, hey really are cute thinking they're all big and stuff and coming to decisions and stuff. Aw...
So Monday came around again, and in the evening it is announced that because Marc Bloch University, having been invaded, had voted to invade our school (we've made a bit of jealousy recently with the publishing of our Bac. results in the local paper, and the poor turn-out to riots, amongst other things), lessons would be cancelled all day Tuesday. Hey, I'm not cmplaining, my attitude towards the whole situation is "It's a fuck-up, it'll sort itself out eventually, in the meantime... MILK IT!" So Tuesday was fun. Again, wednesday-thursday same deal as before, cool-off time, plus the weather wasn't terribly great. (Apart from TPE of course, but I'm sick of that so I probably won't mention it any more than that, except maybe to say that all these days of cancelled school are moving everybody else's around and I'm just glad mine's over!)
Friday, however, was interesting. Ten o'clock comes around and a huge crowd forms at the front gate. It's the demo, of course, come to invade. So we close the gates. Then the hippies have their sit-down. I counted (oh yes, that's how few they were, countable from close up), there were exactly 47 of them at their most numerous stage.Now they had this sign up, saying "Résistance", which was big, but it wasn't terribly clever, because it led to quite a bit of confusion as to their position. Clearly they were being annoying and generally in-the-way, but who it was aimed at wasn't entirely obvious. Were they resisting the evil fascist government and the CPE, or were they resisting the invasion (like everyone else, who were being much more effective just standing up), or both? Feeling provocative, I would have loved to have had signing-making equipment on me right there to write out "Collaboration over here" or something.. But I am too much of a "don'tgiveafuckist" to be that prepared, and I resent myself for it. Keeps me safe though. So after that escalated a bit, with lots of silly shouting, admin decided to pull the plug. After all, they could hardly let us back into the building (oh yes, they had EVACUATED, sirens and all) now that we were all out and stuff. Too dangerous really. So school was cancelled for the rest of the day. Fun fun fun. Second time in a week.
Now, Monday 3rd April, there is much talk of school being cancelled again tomorrow as well. The plan apparently is for the Marc Bloch Uni lot to come round and barricade the gates properly, with planks of wood and things. Big heavy things. Which will have to be pretty impressive if it's to work. Entirely illegal of course. So if the police get called again (oh yeah, apparently it got quite a bit worse out in the street after I scarpered (hey, I am in no physical condition to start getting into brawls yet) off on that Friday), I have at least two teachers' express recommendation to "stay the hell away". So I've sent out plenty of requests to friends to send me txts and call me BEFORE I leave tomorrow if it turns out that would be pointless. Oh yeah, my maths teacher's on strike (despite Chirac's improvement of the law, which he had said would be enough to convince him, the lying rotter), so I get the morning off. Yeah, start at 10 usually, but if he's not there, that means I start at one (you see, MILKING IT) in the afternoon. Life is sweet. Plus the geography teacher's off on jury-duty for TPE, which means of my 6 hours I'm meant to have tomorrow, only 2 are still happening (1-2 german and 4-5 french), so it'll be no big loss if I don't go at all. And the rest, (apart from the funny spelling sometimes which is a glitch in the spell-checker, i've just realised, so anything wrong I can blame on that because it is the truth), as they, say, is history. Or at least, it will be.
