Quotes of the Day

Since the beginning of April, the French first employment contract, an attempt to encourage the hiring of youth under 26 by reducing their employment protection, has been the law of the land. But if there is such a thing as a Pyrrhic compromise, President Jacques Chirac and the millions who have taken to the streets to protest the law have found it. The French President has asked employers not to apply the law in its current form, and the changes it will undergo are unlikely to make it better at creating jobs for the one-quarter of French youth who don't have them. But what about the other parts of Europe where job creation and security are also precarious? Addressing sympathizers last week, Jean-Claude Mailly, secretary-general of the Force Ouvrière union, said the question was "whether French workers are 10 years ahead or 10 years behind." Indeed: Time asked young Europeans if they shared their cohorts' opposition to the new law, and how they feel about the working world.

Victor Akunov
22, student in foreign languages, Moscow State Pedagogical University
The French students speak for me—but they do so in the wrong voice and the wrong way. I abhor their violence. I do not believe that street fighting leads anywhere. I support non-violent protests. [At the same time]I have no confidence whatsoever about getting good, stable employment. It is next to impossible in this country to find a decent job that matches one's professional skills, offers a decent salary and stability, and respects one's social and human rights. I have a friend working as a system administrator for the state-owned Sberbank. They pay him $145 a month. He has no contract, no nothing. This is standard practice in Russia. So the French students' problems do not really apply here.

Marianna Lorusso
28, producer for a youth-targeted satellite TV station, Rome
I'd be willing to accept that it might take three or five years to find a secure job, but by all accounts I shouldn't expect it for at least 20 years. It's pretty depressing. It means there are certain things you can't count on, and other things you can't even hope for. We may be in this "precarious" working condition for life. If I don't know that I can provide for my children, I may just have to decide not to have any. There is the feeling that you are not an adult. The French are reacting to this, and we don't. What's happening there is a normal reaction. Here, something is wrong. There's no movement coming up from below. There is a profound lack of faith in everything. We are almost just resigned, which is a terrible thing for an entire generation under 30.

Rashid Ech Chetouani
27, lives in the Paris suburb Asnières; started a business importing memory sticks from Guangzhou, China
Most of these demonstrating students will have no problem getting a job eventually. It's we in the banlieues who have problems. We are looking to work just for one day, two months, anything. We just want to work, no matter what the contract is. This new cpe (First Employment Contract) is a chance for the youth in the banlieues who really deserve jobs. It's too late to ask whether globalization is good for us or bad for us—it's here. I go to China, I buy products, and come back and sell them here. People are happy to buy because it is cheap. And that's because it comes from a country where people work 70 hours a week. But everybody in France wants to work for the state, they want to be functionaries, to have stability, work 35 hours a week, and not have much pressure. I think that is finished. It's dépassé. It is time to move on.

Thibaud Boutin
26, graduate student in evolutionary biology, University of Paris South
In France we need reform, especially on the bureaucratic level. There's a general sclerosis in the public sector, and it's no different in big companies. But this law isn't the answer. It was forced down our throats, it creates job insecurity and it's discriminatory. In countries like the U.S., England or Switzerland, where they have a very liberal economic system, or even in the Scandinavian countries where there is a bit more job security, a law like the cpe would have passed without a fuss. Not here. I think it's completely abnormal to be fired at the drop of a hat. It's true in France we have social benefits like almost nowhere else in the world, and it would be a shame to lose them. But at the same time, I think we just really like conflict in France. We always need these face-offs. Here, in the end, it's the one who screams the loudest who's right.

Peter Andersen
29, adviser in the youth section, Danish Confederation of Trade Unions
Why should employers be allowed to fire young people without a reason? More than anybody else, young people need secure attachment to the labor market. Here in Denmark, young people are given a kind of loose attachment to the labor market and do not have the same rights as anybody else. The Danish government is proposing that people under 30 should have reduced unemployment benefits if they don't have [ certain educational qualifications ]. The system of casual laborers and contracts is becoming more and more common for young people. Labor-market flexibility must be combined with a solid system of collective agreements, unemployment benefits and a tightly meshed social-security net. That's what we call flexicurity, and that's a good system, but it doesn't apply for some young people. The philosophy seems to be that just because you are young you get a worse deal. That's crazy!

JAMES REID
24, attended high school in Paris; studied at Oxford University; legal intern in London
I would not like to be in France at the moment. For an ambitious young person, it is a gloomy situation. I think that [ Dominique de] Villepin just went with his little trick, which is not going to solve the core problem. And I think that people realize that it is just another gimmick. If you are ambitious you want to be in a place where things are happening, where you can feel that there is electricity in the air. Paris is a big and beautiful city, but it does not have that electricity.

BJORN KIETZMANN
25, political science student, Free University in Berlin
It is admirable what is happening in France right now, particularly that it's not just students and young people but people of all generations who are protesting. Here, too, the situation is rather precarious for people getting started in their careers. You move from one internship to another and end up waiting in line for months or years without a realistic perspective for a job in the future. That didn't happen in past decades. Things are clearly moving in the wrong direction when you strip people of the last possibility to have even a minimum of planning security in their lives.

Anna Filipczak
22, student of social work, chairwoman of the Independent Student Association, Warsaw University
I see nothing wrong with a law that makes it easier for an employer to lay off a graduate. Actually, I think it's good for a young person. It teaches him or her to be flexible. The French must realize that the times when a person had one job all his life with all benefits are simply gone. The French thinking is backward thinking.

• JAMES GRAFF
• For a month, French students have protested against a new employment law. What do other Europeans think of their action?