A new French law intended to help reduce France's roughly 9.6 percent unemployment rate by making it easier for employers to hire and fire employees has angered some segments of the French public - and induced hundreds of thousands of individuals to take to the streets in protest.
The new law is known as the "contrat premiere embauche," or CPE. It allows employers to fire people who are under 26 any time and for any reason within their first two years of employment.
The law is intended to curb unemployment by reforming the current system, in which the firing of employees is so difficult that it makes many employers hesitant to hire new workers.
Senior Jared Rubinstein, who studied abroad in Paris last year and who spent this past spring break in the city, said that unemployment in France is an issue that had to be addressed.
"If there is no reform, unemployment is going to continue to be a problem, especially for young people," he said.
But Rubinstein's French friends believe that the CPE is not the appropriate means of dealing with the issue.
They told Rubinstein that "the CPE wasn't going to work at reducing unemployment, and it was just a measure for businesses," he said.
According to CNN, French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin defended the law by arguing that curbing employers' fears of hiring is necessary to provide job opportunities to France's youth.
Toulouse native Olivier Pedro-Jose, an exchange graduate student and teaching assistant at Tufts, who is currently studying in Paris and working on a thesis on American politics, said that the two-year timeframe for firings may be too long, but that the law is a good step towards this goal.
"We really need to do something for the unemployment," said Pedro-Jose.
"I think that two years is a bit too long. It should be less than two years, but I would say that this text, that this law is a good one ... to prevent a big catastrophe with unemployment," he added.
Pedro-Jose defended the protesters' right to protest, but said that their actions have resulted in inconveniences and problematic situations.
"They have the right to protest and to fight for their ideals ... the thing I don't like is when they prevent other students from going to university, from going to class," he said.
"I am going to take the example of my advisor," he added. "She is teaching from home ... she's been doing that for about two weeks now."
But Flora Valadie - a teaching assistant and exchange graduate student at Tufts for a year - said that Villepin is "governing against his people."
"He really wants to shift the debate from the economic issue to the security issue so he will be able to criticize these people instead of tackling the CPE," she said.
Valadie said that some have gone to the protest just to destroy things.
A university building, including a computer lab and the works of professors, was destroyed.
Senior Vinda Rao was in Paris for spring break and reported that cars were lit on fire, things were smashed into walls and police were swarming everywhere.
There was "damage control like nothing you've ever seen," she said. "It was a bloody mess."
According to CNN, opinion polls found that two-thirds of the French population is opposed to the CPE.
Villepin said he was willing to discuss modification of the law, but would not back down due to the protests. The law is set to take effect in April.
