"There will always be an England," sang Vera Lynn in the dark early days of World War II. Probably true, unless the nation becomes subsumed in the EU, which has as its goal the elimination of the nation-state. But it is surely true that there will always be a Paris, or, as Rick so famously put it, "We'll always have Paris".
The French government has finally decided to tackle one symptom of the nation's sclerotic economy: youth unemployment. Although the unemployment rate for over-25s is what is for the EU a low 8-9 percent, the current rate for under-25s is 24 percent. And that is no temporary phenomenon: the average for 1983-2016 is slightly above 20 percent. It seems that French law makes it so difficult to fire, and payouts for unfair dismissal so costly, that employers are reluctant to hire. The proposed reform would give employers more flexibility, and encourage them to dip into the ranks of unemployed young workers. Not true say the students, who have an ally in Thomas Piketty: the reforms will increase their insecurity—although how a job can increase the insecurity of an unemployed young person is not easy to figure out.
So the Nuit Debout (Up All Night) students have occupied the Place de la République in protest. Led by a 27-year old recent graduate, the tiny (19,000 member) National Union of French Students has the reformers in retreat. "When la jeunesse gets involved in protests, the authorities get nervous," reports the Economist, citing among others one of the 21 deputy mayors of Paris, "Through young people, we express the ideals of the country." One of those ideals is labor contracts like their parents have, the very ones that are freezing the labor market and discouraging employers from hiring the protesting youngsters. So the government has backed down, and is now designating €400 million (about $440 million) for subsidies and other help to young people looking for work. And taxing employers who offer short-term rather than permanent job contracts, a move which, unsurprisingly, has had the effect of discouraging hiring, according to the New York Times' Adam Nossiter, a fact unnoticed on the papers' editorial pages, which oppose gig employment in the U.S.
This being Paris, the protests are organized as a "horizontal democracy", no leaders need apply. And "this being Paris, Nuit Debout already has its own poetry committee," reports historian Simon Schama. Appropriate for a protest that in the words of one civil servant, "aims to re-enchant the world." Better that than to accept entry-level jobs from employers unwilling to offer lifetime positions. After all, a hard day's work might make it difficult to be Up All Night.