Alligator Online

Here at the Alligator, we're getting this strange sense of déjà vu.

Over the end of Spring Break, violent protests broke out all over France. Cars were torched, stones were thrown and protesters were arrested.

But we remember a different set of violent protests just a few short months ago. Back then, immigrant youths took to the streets to fight discrimination and the perceived lack of integration.

This time, students and labor unions seek to combat the First Job Contract law, pending legislation that will allow employers two years during which they can fire workers under the age of 26 for any reason.

But are the two protests totally unrelated?

We think not. And we think the proposed labor law could be a huge boon to young French employees.

To really understand what's going on with the French riots, we have to understand what's going on with the French labor market.

And we're just presumptuous enough to think we can figure it out ourselves.

In France, the labor market is regulated to the extreme. Labor unions are a powerful force in French politics and have successfully lobbied for many so-called labor-friendly policies.

But those regulations, though intended to raise the French standard of living, have had the opposite effect.

Specifically, French employers find it remarkably difficult to fire their employees. Employers therefore have to be much more selective in the workers that they hire. That's partly to blame for France's regularly double-digit unemployment numbers.

The across-the-board unemployment leads to even higher unemployment for young immigrants, as employers find it easier to hire only workers of their preferred nationality or heritage. That's reflected in immigrant unemployment rates, which regularly top 50 percent in many neighborhoods.

The net result of the labor regulations was last year's rioting. The youths felt slighted, and with good reason. They took the hardest blow from the French government's restrictive labor policies. And while we never supported last year's violence, the riots did shed light on a troubling social issue.

The French government finally took notice of the damage that such labor policies could cause and wisely made plans for reform. One of its reform planks was the First Job Contract law, the cause of this year's protests.

Far from being discriminatory against French youth, the new law should give them a huge advantage in the labor market, dramatically raising employment among France's most-slighted minorities.

Without the barriers to firing employees, we expect employers to be more willing to give more and different folks the shot at a job. The law is a definite step in the right direction.

But it's hard for the French disenfranchised to recognize it in the heat of the moment, especially when they've been mistreated so often in the past. Now the youths are stridently protesting a job-creation tool to help out the least among them.

We blame a bad public relations campaign by the French government in explaining the legislation. But we have no sympathy for the labor union leaders who are threatening a general strike if the law isn't withdrawn.

The French economy is crumbling, and the fabric of civilized society is quickly turning to rags. The last thing that France needs right now is for labor leaders to call a divisive, crippling strike.

Some people, at least, should know better.