CPE, etc

I just found this great article on BBC News that does a good job looking at the underlying reasons behind the demonstrations that have been beamed around the world over the last two weeks.

The gist of the article is that France has 23% youth unemployment and that french students are craving a stable and accessible job market. On the other hand, there's a university system and a social practice that puts these students through years of studies with very little practical/professional experience, which makes companies loathe to hire them, especially with the importance, and moreover, expectation of job security in France.

One of the things that's rarely mentioned about the CPE is that after these 2 years of "precarite," where a student can be fired without reason, you're relatively set. It's hard to fire people in France. That's the fact here and I don't know how these students can feel so entitled to job security without being able to prove themselves first. Is the CPE equitable and fair? Well, it's hard to rent an apartment and secure financing without job security, but at the same time, why give a permanent job to someone right out of university who has no hands-on experience?

Personally, I feel that this country babies their students way too much. They're not expected to work during college, often live at home late into their 20s, and pay chump change (ie: a few hundred dollars a year) to go to University for a year. When you throw all of these (costly) benefits at these kids, no wonder they're going to come out of a system like this and expect a degree of continuance into the real world. These students need to make themselves more available and employable to companies in France. Sorry, you're not going to get a career right out of college, it's an economic reality. Understand it, and be flexible. Because the state, which is in my opinion way too powerful here in France can only support a certain level of government patronage.