On a lighter note…
[quote]France’s new prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, refused yesterday to push the country down the road towards free-market reform, saying “Gallic genius” would help put back on its feet a “suffering, impatient and angry” nation that has failed to adapt fully to a changing world. But he insisted that an increasingly heated public debate about the shortcomings of France’s high-tax, high-protection social model compared with the more liberal Anglo-Saxon system was irrelevant.
"In a modern democracy, the debate is not between the liberal and the social, it is between immobilism and action," he said. “Solidarity and initiative, protection and daring: that is the French genius.” [/quote]
What the f*** is this supposed to mean?
Why those figures are even worse than Iraq haha. Four times more Iraqis are optimistic about the future than in France. haha Wonder if this will be a new headline in the NY Times to show how France is a lost cause? Will Chirac be blamed?
[quote]Most economists believe the key to getting France back to work is reform of the country’s inflexible, over-protective labour laws. But France’s powerful public sector unions warned the prime minister this week that any attempt to water down jobs legislation would prompt protests. [b]Mr Villepin said he was setting aside an extra
