Today's General Strike in France - Get with the program guys!
 

1. The French economy is sluggish.

2. Companies are leaving France in a mass exodus.

3. The majority of unions here lack any real power in the E.U.

4. Un-employement is apx. 10%

= The French goverment plans to change labour laws and persue privatisation of many facilities. In short more flexiable labour relations!

Ok,

I can appreciate anyone wanting to keep their job. But France really needs to get with the program. Doing business, any kind of business, in France is a nightmare!

The biggest problem is business is hindered because of the enormous amount of regulation involved. I've commented before on what I call the "Joke of French Bueracracy" but it is much deeper than that. At the most basic core of French society and Goverment is a belief that the solutions of most problems can be accomplished by further legislation. It creates a workforce and work-ethic that in the most basic sense believes that an employer is "Lucky" to receive services of an employee.

In short, this is the only country I have ever lived in that large sums of money does NOT necessarily guarantee desired result.

Add to this a general fear of global-ization and international competition. France tends to be a closed society and demands that everyone and everything comming into the country conform to it's desires. Not necessarily if a bad thing if you are only going to market to the French. But if you want to open a factory manufacturing cars for the Japanese, you might suddenly find yourself pulling your hair out if regulation demands you can only print the owner's manual in French.


France is beautiful! But not like a museum. More like a mausoleum. It is a 1st world nation that conducts itself in attitude and culture like a 3rd world one. It needs to break down cultural borders and streamline it's regulations and give more freedom to citizens and business to earn a wage.

In any nation it is entrepeneurs that represent the bulk of employement and production. This can't happen if only true Frenchmen can receive Siret numbers to operate a sole proprietorship. (You need a siret number to operate a lemonaide stand in France)

And the large companies require flexibilty and clear and easily understandable regulation in order to operate, without un-due goverment interference. International companies will never provide high-paying jobs and locate to France without this abilty.

So get with the program guys! This is the 21st century.

I've always thought it's funny that the well known phrase "laissez faire" is French, yet the concept of laissez faire isn't very popular in France.

so it's an "italian strike"

Ahh the smell of liberal socialism in the morning.
You forgot one thing... they use dogs as shark bait too.

Viva france... LOL

No it is very much alive in France.
But it kind of works like this....

Example 1:
You go to the Maire office to get a "Certificate de Hebergement." (Piece of goverment paper that states where you live so you can put your name on a mail box, open a bank account, etc.)They give you a ton of forums to fill out and demand an E.D.F. Facture (electricty bill) or lease.

But you Electricy is included and you don't have a lease.

Therfore, the person looks at you and shrugs.

IE: You are screwed. If you can't fill out the form and the person behind the counter isn't going to help you. They have no solution or suggestions and Nobody cares.

Example 2:
You go to a bank, stand in line for 45 mins. because there is only 1 teller.
Finally you get to the teller and ask to open an account.

Teller looks at you strange, tells you thats not her department and you have to make an appointment.

Then you wait 2 weeks, meet the person for the account. He tells you that you don't have all the paperwork he desires. Go someplace else and come back. (Certifcate de herbergement?)
------------------
You are constantly going around in circles, waiting in lines and no one really gives a shit about being fast or efficient. But if you voice your displeasure at this, the French worker will BITCH YOU OUT! "C'est France! It is the way we do things!"

And if you are an employer and demand your workers to "Get the lead out." You get told, "I will quit!" or "It is time for a strike!" or "You can not fire me because it is Interdit by law!" (Yes sacking a person is a bitch in France. Regardless of how much of a fuck up they are.)

All of this has led me to conduct my business dealings, not with the true Frenchmen but with foriegners. The Africans, Middle Easterners, etc will work and jump real high for the right price.

--

You forgot how lazy France and Germany has become because of their social political structure. In America, you will be lucky to get at least one weeks vacation. In France and Germany, I believe cummulatively, average citizens get somewhere over a months worths of (PAID) vacation.

pretty cool if your a blue collar guy/gal, but not very economically sound for Western Europe as a whole.

You know I really hate to sound like I'm being a racist bitch or picking on true Frenchmen.

But yup!

Just based on my experiences in Paris, the people out here move slower than they did in communist Russia.

My first month I could have dropped dead from surprise when a supermarket check out girl suddenly stopped her job, went outside and had a smoke. And there was about 12 people in line and everyone was just calmly waiting for her to finish.

Lets just say I don't think Walmart will ever be locating here any time soon. They actually expect their employees to earn their money.

Is it true that the French work week is 30 hours and they're trying to lower it? A friend told me that. If true, that is totally ridiculous. Working only 30 hours, how can anyone afford a decent living? Maybe wages are higher in general, but that also means higher prices.

french people have a history or being lazy and wanting everything for free.

And Albertians have a history of dipping their balls in Sea Bass Oil.

look girl, if you saw the size of my sausage you would trip over your own feet and fall right on my cock mouth first.

It's about 35 hours but basically the country is split.
The unions are used to getting their way and today they expected over a million strikers and that it would include private sector.

But for the most part there was about 100k. Private sector just went to work as normal. It's classic old world meets new world syndrome here.

Honey, I've sucked off Billy Glide, Sean Micheals and fucked Ron Jeremy.

Trust me, you need alot of Sea Bass Oil if you think I'm going to be tripping over myself.

In this months Newsweek magazine, there's an article about how so many of France's wealthiest citizens have moved to Belgium because of the crazy high taxes in France.

well it sounds like you easily trip onto cocks alot, so you are wrong.

I'm French, but i live in Romania since 2004.
Romania and Bulgary are now 100 x more open to business and 100 x less communist than france...

France is really ok if you are poor, or if you don't run any business.
But don't try to start any business in France...

If you earn more money than the average, you will be suspected.
If you own a better car than your neighbour's one, be carefull, he could call the financial administration to report you for tax fraud (even if he doesn't know anything about your business).

Taxes are only a small part of the problem, trust me :1orglaugh

I agree completely,

Part of the reason we left Canada was the high taxes. (And the continuance of the "French - English" war that goes on.)

The tax problem in France is bad but thats because of the pointless and needless busy work that goes on by goverment. The overhead of supporting this much paperwork is got to be insane.

(Below is generalities based on my observations. Accept with a grain of salt)

Culturally I find Frenchmen to exist in a state of duality.

On one hand I have never lived in any place where intellect and acceptance of free thought is so wildly accepted.

But on the other hand, Frenchmen tend to be immature. There is racism, culutrual elightism and a tendancy for people "Cut their noses off to spite their faces" attitude.

I figured out very quickly that there is an ugly side to France when I noticed women would go *alone* to exchangiste clubs, get fucked and gangbanged by 10 different men. But then wear mini skirts with full-length pants on underneath.

Salopes, most of them, but more prudish then the Queen of England at the same time. (Wonder why I complain about porn talent in france?)

It doesn't surprise me and we are in a similar situation. Neither our bank accounts nor our corporation is registered in France. And thats because the paperwork is a fucking nightmare. About the only thing that gets paid here is our taxes and last year we just couldn't figure out the forums.

So we went to the tax office and said, "How much do you want?!" Believe it or not, 3 weeks later we actually got a facture (Bill). All they wanted to know was how much we earned and they gave us a figure based on that. **Amazing**

This proved beyond doubt the best way to get anything done in France is to yell, scream, say "Fuck Off" alot and make a very big "ImPoLiTe" scene. Doing this is now a standard business practice with us.

I'm a semi-retired porn chick (http://kelly-steele.com)

You can see me in such videos as - Internal Affairs 5, Lost Hienie, Butt Plumbers 5 and about a hundered others.

I don't trip into cocks. I get PAID to fuck them.

You can be hung like a gerbal or a horse but if someone isn't paying, I'm not fucking.

Man!
Today I just found some idiot that is still striking! He was right outside the Chateau D'eau metro with a sign.

Too fucking funny! I must remember to bring my camera.