Manifestations

Time stops when you're in love or in revolution.

I have met any number of Parisians over a certain age who are neither. In fact many are embarrassed by the "manifestations" (great word) that emerge at train stations, monuments and highways -- at odd moments. The participants that I have seen seem to be rag-tag, young and prone to the romance of the barricades.

What is so sad is that they are willing to trade job security at their first job (!) for the prospect of growth and development. Sinecure over career prospects and challenges.

One Parisian, writing to the International Herald Tribune (April, 3, 2006) muses: "The unemployment among French young people is linked to global unemployment. If you reduce job security, you also reduce the faith people have in their future and, by the way, reduce their consumption. If there is a decrease in consumption, France will have to face a decrease in growth which will produce an even higher unemployment rate. If that is the aim of the French government, fine; but do not expect reasonably not-too-stupid students let France go to ruin."

The writer apparently eschews "Anglo-Saxon" economics. We may like our demand curves downward-sloping but that may simply be an acquired taste.