FRONTLINE/World | France: The Precarious Generation | PBS

Au revoir job security

France is at a crossroads, caught between its treasured but costly social model and the pressures of globalization.

Watch the rest of the video on the Frontline/WORLD website to hear from entrepreneurs who want change, young people anxious about their future, and voices from the banlieue - or French housing projects - who are desperate for work.

For more information and to see the entire video, visit http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/rough/2007/04/france_the_prec.html .

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• France
• work
• Frontline/World
• PBS
• French
• economy
• precaire
• precarious
• generation
• CPE
• banlieue
• election
• youth
• riots

[rbuckwild]

young people getting hired and fired at a whim,unpaid interns,job discrimination... sounds familiar. Oh yeah! The USA!

[Marly61]

Please, to all the French, do not look to America as a model for future economic developement under Neoliberalism. Life sucks here after you look at the measurements and statistics.

[NeutralExistence]

The French people wont have a choice about what they model their system around since it has been created by the British, and Americans after they rebuilt France in WW2. The Nazi system would have made France one of the most productive countries in Europe, and greatly improved the lives of the French people believe it or not. I am not a Nazi supporter, but I see how their economic policy's could have helped to prevent these problems that are now happening in Europe under the British banks rule.

[Marly61]

@karlsmith00 YOU got me there, understanding how much americans are manipulated by economics that powerful people use against us is crazy for an american living in Paris like me.

[karlsmith00]

@Marly61 GO SEE A PSYCHIATRIST YOU SCHIZO.

crazy people shouldn't be allowed on computers. you should be locked in a psych ward before you hurt someone, crazy.

[Marly61]

@karlsmith00 A good example of how much americans are such pussies is when the economic, bank and auto crises hit they just said oh well but the Greeks, French and many other European peoples went and go to the street to battle the police.

[Marly61]

@karlsmith00 And of course you have several authoritative souces supporting your position that the muslims in France refuse to assimilate so I am interested in reading them so please present those reports and analysis.

[Marly61]

@karlsmith00 If you want to continue sounding like the asshole you are then keep watching US media while your standard of living continues to decline and countries like France's, Norway, and The Netherlands surpasses the US's even further. Or you could what a You Tube video David Harvey's A Bried History of Neoliberalism to understand what is going on in the US and the world which you will barely hear about in the US

[Marly61]

@karlsmith00 Just a couple of sources proving how stupid you are. The book "The State of Working American" reports that standards of lving in The Netherlands and Norway have passed the standards of living in the US and many other non US peers countries like oil producing countries are far ahead of the US. International Living's Quality of Life index for several years has concluded that France's quality of life is the best in the world.

[Marly61]

@karlsmith00 Let me quess you dumb fuck, you probably never heard of Pragmatic Neoliberalism?

[Marly61]

@karlsmith00 You are why Americans are consider such world assholes. If you adjust per capita GDP for the time off that the French take for all various reasons GDP in France is higher. Let me quess, you actually believe there is a problem with Social Security in the US? Do you know how many decades they have been saying what you are saying about France? I am laughing my ass off. Do you even understand the purpose of the policies being implemented in Greece have nothing to do with what is needed

[Marly61]

@karlsmith00 Oh shit, do you understand that the higher taxes in these countries actually prevented them from dropping economically as bad as the US? Taxes in these countries are used as a method of redistributing wealth to the average citizen which maintains consumption levels that would be far lower without these taxes as in the US. Damn you're a typical dumb fuck american. I said americans work hard but no where near as hard as people in these countries.