The government should outline an exit with the crisis of the CPE tomorrow (Monday).
At 9am CET, after a private conversation between the President and his Prime Minister, a meeting will be held at Chirac's official residence, the Elysée.
At his side, Domenique de Villepin, Nicolas Sarkozy, the ministers Jean-Louis Borloo (Social Cohesion) and Gerard Larcher (Employment), as well as the two presidents of the UMP arliamentary groups, Bernard Accoyer and Josselin de Rohan, who were speaking all last week with the trade unions. Together, they should put the final touches to a new private bill replacing the contract first engages and try to close two months of crisis.
The text should be articulated around devices aimed to help employment, in particular in direction of the most underprivileged young people. Sarkozy ally François Fillon spoke yesterday evening on Europe 1, saying he wished that "The only way to get out of this situation tomorrow is to propose that the CPE is replaced, that is it to say that it disappears, that is to say that there is no more CPE," but that a device which gives access more easily to the contracts which already exist replaces it.
Yesterday evening, the Matignon, Villepins official residence, confirmed that "several scenarios" were still being studied. His is expected to make a short speech at 10.30am in the Matignon. It will be followed of a press conference of the two presidents of the group UMP, who will explain the calendar of the implementation of the device.
Tomorrow evening, at 8pm Villepin will appear in an interview on TF1. Meanwhile, Sarkozy will only speak on Tuesday in an interview with Le Figaro which was envisaged last week, but has been pushed back several times at the request of Chirac.
The content of this piece has been taken from an article by Liberation.
Comments
leightoncooke April 10th,
leightoncooke
April 10th, 2006 | 8:50 am
Well done, France!
Comandante Gringo April
Comandante Gringo
April 10th, 2006 | 5:26 pm
Not so quick.
The Left shows its weakness in not at least getting the resignation of de Villepin here — not to mention demanding a whole lot more than just the repeal of the CPE. And Sarkozy’s head should have been served up on a platter last year, for that matter.
That the French Left allows the Chirac regime to continue to play these political mind games only goes to show the weakness of a movement which still relies on this treacherous trade union and Left party leadership. Clearly the Right under Chirac knows all this and fully intends to fool the Left as much as possible here, and will attempt to advance their neoliberal program thru some other avenue by some other name. And I fully expect that the trade union and Left party leaderships will do their utmost to aid Chirac in all this — while enjoying their newfound, ill-gotten prestige, and a better place at the neoliberal table. Hell — I fully expect a future Parti Socialist government to continue with the same neoliberal assault, as in the past. And who will the students and workers replace that lot with then..?
It is a shame there is no leadership on the French Left which can spell all this out clearly to the masses — most especially the youth workers and those soon to be, the students. And so we have to wait for another crisis in which new organizations will have to be thrown up by these masses themselves, against all the old parties and trade unions as well.