By Sean Sullivan Lagniappe columnist

I really wanted to write about David Thomas’ Mardi Gras spending spree in this issue’s ” To Whom it May Concern,” but one of our editors is so good at it and seems to derive such pleasure from writing about the school board that I couldn’t take it away from him. So, I’ll stay out of his domain this time, but be aware you owe me one, Rob.

Other than a frank discussion of WPMI’s Crichton Leprechaun story I’m left with only one possible topic this week…how screwed up France is.

This isn’t some I-live-for-Lee-Greenwood-xenophobic rant here, it’s proof, though, no matter how screwed up politics and culture get in this country, we won’t ever be as bad as France. France is not the only country guilty of moving in the wrong direction at a faster and faster pace, but they are currently showing how screwed up their country’s values are for the world media to see.

The latest flub for France comes from their youth. You have to figure the youth in France are going to be extremely put out with everything since the adults – their parents – are a fairly perturbable group themselves. I wonder how angst-ridden you have to be to be a French youth. When your mom and dad sit around in berets, smoking cigarettes and planning the next revolution, you really have to go above and beyond to shock them. That’s a lot of pressure and it has possibly forced the French youth to riot in the streets against …working for a living.

The kids aren’t exactly rioting against having a job, it is more the “working while at that job” that has l’enfants crossing their arms and stomping their feet. The matter is not completely clear, just like most subjects in France, I mean do we even know who presently controls the Alsace-Lorraine?

Muddy is the water through which French politics is viewed, but it is all we have, so here it is: The French Parliament in an attempt to lower their 23 percent unemployment rate, which is six times the U.S. figure, passed a law giving French employers the right to actually fire someone. Why would a law about firing help lower the French unemployment rate? Because it would let employers hire people without the fear of never being able to fire them no matter what the employee’s performance was like. This law only would apply to new employees and once they made it through a two-year trial period, the jobs would fall back under the French government’s ridiculous job protection law that makes it virtually impossible to can someone.

This two-year window is an attempt to lower the unemployment rate down to a manageable 18 percent or so, which is still higher than the Mississippi Delta and Appalachia’s rates, and it has been greeted by stinky, tres angst-ridden youths rioting in the rues of Paris, demanding the right to work without the threat of being fired. If you have real estate in France or own any stock in French companies let this be a warning to sell it all now and stay clear of La Republique if this is the generation that will be taking control of France in the next few years.

You know if these riotous French youngsters put half the energy into labor that they do into smoking cigarettes and rioting, holding a job would be easy.

Youth protesters in Marseilles tore down the French flag flying above city hall and replaced it with a banner reading “Anti-Capitalism.” Here is a message for you Marxist French youths: if it wasn’t for the free market there would be no Jerry Lewis, so put that in your Louis Vuitton cigarette holder and smoke it!

So, the next time you get bummed out about the way our country is heading, take solace in the fact we’re not France.

Sean Sullivan is Lagniappe lagniappe columnist. Contact him at ssullivan@lagniappemobile.com.

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