In 2004 I assumed responsibility for two chip design organizations in France based in a suburb of Paris and another just west of Nice. These teams were part of the acquisition of IBM's microprocessor development team. As a result of leading this teams for several years, I became deeply immersed in the social and employment culture of France. That doesn't mean that I took on the personal characteristics of a French citizen. I was just immersed in it long enough to understand it. The protests that we are seeing in France have always been hovering beneath the surface. It is part of the French culture to protest and to protest loudly. In fact, some of my employees staged two days of protest marches in solidarity with the IBM union when the union created the narrative that IBM was getting rid of people by selling a business unit to an outside company. I’m telling you this to help you understand the French psyche.
It is clear that France is at a fiscal turning point. The country cannot afford its social programs. No politician will get elected on a platform of fiscal responsibility.
The entire French nation is bracing for further unrest this weekend. Public transportation has been suspended in many major cities including Paris. Protest marches have been banned in many cities and are only being permitted on an exceptional basis for certain union led protest marches.
When I was in France, my staff used to tell me, Victor, you don’t understand. You come to France with your US and Canadian perspective. You don’t understand how important job security is in France. In an environment where it costs so much to fire someone, the consequence is that very few people actually get hired. You see in France, any company with more than 50 employees is required to have a union by law. So for those who do have a job in an enterprise that is protected by a union, getting a job is essentially a guarantee of financial stability. But it is also a prison. You can’t just leave and find a higher paying job. So when inflation robs people of their purchasing power, these people are trapped. They feel entitled to a certain standard of living and when the environment doesn’t deliver it, they blame the French government. The protests in France over high fuel prices make no sense. The high prices are a result of the war between Russia and the Ukraine, combined with the war in the Persian Gulf. If anything, people from France should be protest marching in Moscow and Washington DC instead of Paris.
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