NUIT DEBOUT; HOLLANDE; NAVAL VICTORIES; HIGH TIMES FOR HIGH TECH

Nuit Debout, Place de la République

A new wind is blowing across the land and it is blowing at night. Nuit Debout (Up All Night) is a movement that started in Paris on March 31 as a protest against a pending new labor law (El Khomri) that would make hiring and firing easier for companies and potentially affect job opportunities, especially for the young. Those young walked out of high schools and universities and were soon joined by working people who would come and demonstrate after work. As they grew in numbers they began to occupy large public squares such as the Place de la République, where reporters and television cameras relayed their every claim and protest to the prime-time evening newscasts.  

Interestingly, many of these young protesters are at least ten years away from their first job, and their anger over a proposed new labor law looks like a pre-emptive strike against a reduced job market when they finish school. Once in a while they are joined by musicians, and to some it may look like they are out having fun at night, happy to skip school for a good cause, and soon to fade away like so many protests before. But against all expectation, the movement did not run out of steam and people continue to gather nightly even after hooligans tried to disrupt the protest by throwing rocks at police, breaking windows and setting fires. So Nuit Debout continues and has now spread to other cities, although the tone is shifting from protest to gabfest where anyone present can speak up and be heard for three minutes. So far, so unthreatening.

And yet, an undercurrent is being felt that is reminiscent of the Stéphane Hessel effect of a few years ago. In late 2010 German-born and French-nationalized Stéphane Hessel, concentration camp survivor, resistance fighter, former French diplomat who helped draft the Declaration of Human Rights, and man of letters, published Indignez-Vous! (Time for Outrage!), a pamphlet-sized book that was an instant success and sold 4.5 million copies in 35 countries. I attended his conference in Aix-en-Provence in October 2010 where the then 93-year-old Hessel brought the audience to its feet with a passionate call for non-violent action against growing social and economic inequality worldwide. The key words were Resistance and Human Dignity.

Stéphane Hessel

Though this was no call for revolution, the seed was planted and sparked the Occupy Wall Street movement in the US and Los Indignados in Spain. Hessel died in 2015 at age 95, but his message of peaceful protest against the indignities of today's neoliberal market-driven system still resonates in the left-wing Spanish movement Podemos, a direct outgrowth of Los Indignados.  Podemos (We Can) was founded in March 2014 and today is Spain's second-biggest party, with 69 seats in Parliament. Last week its leader, political scientist Pablo Iglesias, turned down an invitation to form a coalition government with Prime Minister Rajoy's center-right People's Party. Even if Podemos does not join the coalition, its rapid growth is evidence that sustained protest may well spawn a political party with a real voice in government.

Pablo Iglesias, leader of Podemos

It is highly unlikely that the French Nuit Debout movement will grow into a political force, but the extreme dissatisfaction with President François Hollande (whose approval rating is down to 14 percent in the polls) is such that this cannot be excluded. Even his own camp is divided, and Economics Minister Emmanuel Macron has just announced in an interview that he is dissatisfied with today's Socialist Party. Earlier this month he founded his own movement, En Marche, and rumor has it that he may run for the presidency in 2017.

Following the defeat in Parliament of his bill to revoke French citizenship from convicted terrorists, and his current difficulties in getting the El Khomri labor law adopted, President Hollande went on national television on April 14 for a "Dialogue with Citizens". In a 2-hour interview by two journalists and four citizens, the dialogue soon turned into an exercise of self-justification and a detailed listing of his minor successes. Nothing about the high rate of unemployment which he claims to be combatting with a number of measures (derisively referred to as "mesurettes" in the press) that are clearly not working. And nothing in the way of concrete answers to the four citizens about their particular concerns (bloated paperwork, jihadism at home, rise of the right). To one and all, Hollande's response was: things are better today than when I took over. "Are you joking?" said one of the journalists.

In the stuttering manner that is his style Hollande failed to reassure anyone, and the next day the newspapers pulled no punches, calling this missed opportunity his Waterloo, a catastrophe for the socialists, a gain for the extreme-right Front National, and proof that he cannot be re-elected in 2017.
If today he is widely seen as a failed president at home, he nevertheless has a strong record abroad.

He has never looked more presidential than in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo killings in January 2015, when he gathered dozens of foreign leaders around him in a solemn march against religious extremism. Similarly, he found the right tone in his response to the Paris attacks of last November and immediately launched French airstrikes against ISIS strongholds in Raqqa, Syria.
In 2013, he was the only European leader to support an international military strike in Syria (which had to be aborted when the US and the UK backed out), and that same year, he led a successful military intervention against Al Qaida in Mali, where he maintains a military force to secure the Sahel region.

Pity that this is not perceived as strong leadership at home, where he continues to be seen as weak and out of his depth. Fighting wars is simpler than passing reforms in France.

So where is the good news?
Try this: 

Shortfin Barracuda submarine

−  Just this morning it was announced that French shipbuilder DCNS has won a $40 billion contract to build 12 submarines for the Australian Navy, beating bids from Germany and Japan. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced the news and said that the Shortfin Barracuda subs will be built in Adelaide.

− Earlier this month the Italo-Swiss shipping company MSC Croisières ordered four large cruise ships from shipbuilder STX France in Saint Nazaire for a total cost of €4 billion. This in addition to an earlier €3 billion order by MSC for four passenger ships, i.e. a total commitment by MSC of €7 billion in two years.

−Today STX is putting the finishing touches on the Harmony of the Seas, largest cruise ship in the world, built for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. It is expected to be delivered next month. With a full order book and commitments until 2025, things are going swimmingly for STX France.

− Perhaps more surprising is that France is experiencing a boom in high-tech startups. The difficult job market at home has caused a brain drain of young people to banking jobs in London and elsewhere, but others have been motivated to start their own business, especially in new technologies.

This year, the important annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas counted no less than 128 French high-tech companies, and France is today "the high-tech pioneer in Europe" according to John Chambers, CEO of Cisko, who is ready to invest €200 million in French startups. Microsoft's CEO agrees and is investing €83 million in French startups, while Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg is opening an Artificial Intelligence research lab in Paris this year. Not bad for a country with a Labor Code of 3000 pages.
Whoot-whoot for the young techies!

As we suffer another nationwide railworkers' strike today with shutdowns or slowdowns on most regional and high-speed networks in France causing misery for commuters, it is good to look at the bright side and find reason for optimism.
Not easy for the French, who tend to see the glass as half empty.
But even if they may find pleasure in pouting, as someone has claimed, they will surely want to raise a toast to these recent commercial successes. So here's to France and its technological know-how - with a glass of wine that is half full.

TERROR IN BRUSSELS

On Tuesday March 22nd, my husband and I were scheduled to take an evening flight from Brussels to Marseilles, missing by hours the terrorist attack on Zaventem airport where two suicide bombers blew themselves up in the crowded departure hall earlier that day. About an hour later a bomb exploded on a Metro train near the European Union headquarters in the city center. In all, 35 people were killed and more than 300 wounded. The attack was claimed by the Islamic State (IS), presumably in reprisal for the arrest of Salah Abdeslam, implicated in the November 13 attacks in Paris (blog 11/21/15), who was finally tracked down and arrested in Brussels a few days earlier after four months on the run.

Fortunately we were alerted in time to try to catch a return flight from Amsterdam but found no available seats until early the next morning. Having already gone through a very strict security check we decided to stay overnight at a hotel inside Schiphol airport, and spent much of the afternoon in search of a quiet corner to pass the time. A sign drew us to a Meditation Room where we found three men kneeling in prayer on mats facing Mecca, doing their five-times-daily religious duty. The room did not seem to serve any other purpose and we withdrew quietly but unable to resist a comparison between this private faith and the murderous fervor in Brussels, all in the name of the same religion.  

As we try to absorb yet another deadly attack, close to home and committed by people living among us, our initial shock and sadness quickly mix with anger and impatience. What is being done about this? Weren't the authorities supposed to find ways to prevent this and work together to ensure our safety? Yes, they were, and no, they didn't.

Zaventem airport, heavily damaged

Immediately following the airport bombing the Belgian government put the city on highest alert, which includes a total shutdown of all transportation systems. Yet, when a Metro car exploded an hour later the shutdown order had not yet gone out.

Belgium has the highest number of home-grown jihadists in all of Europe who were trained in Syria or Iraq, and the Brussels neighborhood of Molenbeek houses a well-organized radical islamist cell that planned and executed the November attacks in Paris. Yet, after those attacks, Molenbeek resident Salah Abdeslam, one of the participants, managed to return to his Brussels base where, despite a massive manhunt and a total lockdown of the city, he remained undetected for four months.

Another disturbing fact:  a day after the Brussels airport attack President Recep Erdogan of Turkey revealed that airport bomber Ibrahim Bakraoui had been arrested last July near the Syrian border and expelled from Turkey on suspicion of being a radical militant. Turkish authorities alerted their Dutch and Belgian counterparts but this alert was not passed on by Belgian diplomats to their security forces at home. The alert was later found in a pile of mail on an officer's desk in Brussels.

Suicide bombers Khalid and Ibrahim Bakraoui and Najim Laachraoui 

Belgian-born Ibrahim Bakraoui had a criminal record and in 2010 was sentenced to nine years in prison for shooting at police in an armed robbery. He was released on parole after having served less than half of his sentence. Since then, he has been able to travel abroad and was never pursued for skipping parole.

Khalid Bakraoui, Ihrahim's brother, blew himself up in the Brussels Metro, killing 20 people and injuring more than 100. He too was known to police for criminality but not suspected of having terrorist links. However, Interpol had issued a "red notice" for Khalid that stated that Belgian authorities wanted him in connection with terrorism, which those authorities seem to deny today. Both brothers, it turns out, had direct connections to the Paris terrorists.

The second airport bomber has been identified as Najim Laachraoui who was born in Morocco but raised in Belgium. He had studied electromechanical engineering in Brussels and was known to be an IS bomb maker. He may have acquired those skills in Syria in 2013. His DNA was found on explosives used in the Paris attacks and in an apartment in Brussels where bomb-making materials were found in December.

Following these revelations the Belgian ministers of justice and of the interior offered their resignation, which was refused by the Prime Minister. A parliamentary inquiry will look into the missed clues and intelligence failures.

It is not surprising that terrorists choose Belgium to prepare their attacks. According to Peter Müller of Der Spiegel, they do so because it is easy. "When it comes to the country's security apparatus, Belgium is essentially a failed state," he writes. Brussels has a Byzantine structure of 19 municipalities and six police departments. Add to that a certain rivalry between French- and Flemish-speaking politicians and you have a recipe for inefficiency.

As always, poverty and a lack of integration of the immigrant population play their part in creating an unemployed, disenchanted, younger generation that is open to radicalization, especially in neighborhoods like Molenbeek and Schaerbeek where jihadist cells have been able to develop and flourish undisturbed.

Similarly, France's notorious cités, those suburbs of towering apartment blocks with a large population of immigrants, high unemployment and widespread delinquency, are fertile ground for islamist recruiters. This is where some of the Paris attackers holed up and were sheltered until they fled or were killed. After those November attacks, investigators found that a number of the terrorists had traveled from France to Syria, crossing back into France without a problem. Securing Europe's open borders seems near impossible, and only now are EU governments beginning to share intelligence with foreign services. Up to a point.

The Passenger Name Record (PNR), for instance, widely used in international air travel, is still not adopted in Europe. Ever since it was first discussed in the European Parliament in 2011, the use of a PNR has repeatedly been rejected by the European left (socialists, liberals and greens) on fears of invasion of privacy. After the Paris attacks in November, a furious Bernard Cazeneuve, France's Interior Minister, took his own party representatives to task and insisted that the PNR issue be put back on the Agenda of the European Parliament where, in the plenary session of March 7th, the measure was voted down again. Even though three of the French socialist deputies had finally voted in favor, four did not attend and five abstained. 

Brussels pays homage to terrorist victims

In a hopeful sign after the Brussels tragedy, six suspected terrorists have been arrested this past week in Belgium, two in Germany and one in France. The arrest in France has led to the discovery yesterday of a French national in Rotterdam who, Dutch police say, was planning to commit a terrorist attack in France. Close cooperation between European police forces paid off and in one week's time managed to make a significant dent in the terrorist network in Europe.

Meanwhile, the planned March Against Fear on Easter Sunday in Brussels was cancelled by local authorities who said their thinly stretched police force could not ensure the crowd's safety. Nevertheless, people spontaneously drifted to the Place de la Bourse where masses of flowers and candles had been left in homage to the victims. Sadly, the respectful gathering of mourners was rudely interrupted by about 100 hooligans and extreme-rightists who trampled the flowers and shouted anti-immigrant slogans. The police used water canons to disperse them. It was a sickening scene.

Flags at half-staff at EU headquarters 

Two days after the Brussels attacks an Extraordinary Meeting of the EU Ministers for Justice and for Security was held in Brussels "to set out measures to enhance our collective capacity to combat terrorism". About time, methinks. Given the cautious tone, however, I will allow myself some doubt.

If ever our fragile European Union needed a strong leader, it is now. One captain in command of the unwieldy ship of 28 nations, who speaks with one voice for the greater good and has the wisdom and courage to make the difficult choices.

If it were possible, Pope Francis would be my candidate.

SALON DE L'AGRICULTURE; CALAIS JUNGLE; BATTLE OF THE CIRCUMFLEX

SALON DE L'AGRICULTURE

Yesterday, one hour before its official opening, President François Hollande visited the Salon de l'Agriculture in Paris, where all farm-produced riches of France − live as well as transformed − will be on display for nine days on the vast grounds of this annual fair at the Porte de Versailles. Just returned from a visit to South America and to French Polynesia, where he was wreathed in flower garlands, he found quite a different reception at the Salon where his arrival was booed amid cries for his resignation. The angry farmers, who have been marching and disrupting traffic everywhere for over a month, claim that Hollande has not kept his promises and that they are hanging on by their fingernails, facing bankruptcy if immediate relief is not forthcoming. Worst off are the dairy farmers and pork producers who cannot compete with lower-priced products from Germany or Eastern Europe sold at French supermarkets.

Hollande in difficulty at the Salon

Last summer Minister of Agriculture Stéphane Le Foll acknowledged that French farmers pay more social charges and face stiffer environmental regulations than other European farmers who can offer their products at lower prices (see blog 8/23/15).  He promised to take up the issue with the European Commission in Brussels and to request that supermarkets show solidarity by reducing their profit margins on certain French farm products. In January of this year the government granted the farmers a 10 percent reduction of their charges but it was not enough and the demonstrations continued. At yesterday's Salon opening a beleaguered President Hollande said that negotiations with the supermarket chains are continuing and that he would discuss the problems caused by the EU's sanctions on Russia (big export market for French farmers) with the European Council at their meeting of March 7th. For the farmers it was a song and dance they had heard before, and they responded by tearing down the Salon's stand of the Ministry of Agriculture.

Stand of Ministry of Agriculture destroyed

The small family farm, so beloved by the tradition-bound French, is facing an uphill battle against mechanized, industrial-size farms elsewhere and their ultimate failure looms large. Bankruptcies are likely to reduce their numbers in the coming years, and perhaps some survivors may want to reinvent themselves as exporters of a high-priced luxurious niche product targeted at the deep pockets of the ultra-rich, a segment that seems to suffer no slowdown. Like fine French wines, champagne and perfumes, high-end artisanal truffel-studded French sausage?

CALAIS JUNGLE

After a court last Thursday gave the Calais prefecture the go-ahead to dismantle the notorious Jungle camp outside Calais (blog 2/5/16), local officials have begun telling refugees that they will have to move out. No deadline was set, but after transfering some 3000 migrants to other shelters in Northwest France in recent months, authorities have already razed the crowded southern section of the camp and brought in a large number of converted shipping containers equipped with heating and plumbing to house some 1300 migrants while their asylum applications are being treated. They also tried to convince the other refugees to give up their attempts to reach England and apply for asylum in France.

Jungle before

However, Clare Moseley of British volunteer aid organization Care4Calais said that several aid groups have been opposing the dismantlement in court and that a new legal appeal against Thursday's ruling has been filed. Volunteers, aided by French students, toured the camp and explained to the migrants that they were allowed to stay while the appeal is pending. It appears that most have no intention to move anyway, like the Afghan man who said "It took me two years to get here and I have been here for three months now. I have tried lots of times to go to England. I have family there; it's the only place I want to go." Similarly, a Pakistani man (no-one gives his name here) said: "I'm staying here. It's either here or England."

Calais Jungle after

Some of the camp's residents have moved into the heated containers, others leave daily in small groups on official buses that take them to other refugee centers. But most prefer to stay in the improved camp that contains a refugee-built church, a mosque, a language school for French and English classes, and several shops. Among them are more than three hundred unaccompanied children who have family in the UK and who could have their claims considered here, according to Rachel Robinson of the human rights group Liberty. British actor Jude Law, who visited the camp last week, called on David Cameron to allow unaccompanied children in the camp entry into the UK if they have family there.

The clean-up and eventual destruction of The Jungle has begun but is not likely to be finished anytime soon. Furthermore, the appalling lack of a coordinated European response to the migrant crisis and growing nationalism in eastern Europe bode ill for the refugees in the short term and for the very survival of the European Union in the long term.

THE BATTLE OF THE CIRCUMFLEX

In the shadow of furious farmers and suffering refugees, another battle is quietly brewing in France: the recent circumflex-and-simplified-spelling issue has turned into an open confrontation between the Académie Française and the Minister of Education (blog 2/5/16). In an interview published on February 13 in the daily Le Figaro Hélène Carrère d'Encausse, Perpetual Secretary of the Académie Française, re-stated the position of the Académie: "A total opposition to any spelling reform but a conditional agreement on a limited number of simplifications that shall not be imposed by any authority and shall have to withstand the test of time." She insisted that the "limited simplifications" were proposed in 1990 by the Conseil Supérieur de la Langue Française and not by the Académie Française, "as the Ministry of Education has us believe."  The fine distinction between the Council and the Académie might have escaped mere mortals, but Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, Minister of Education, was not taken in and called on Mrs. Carrère d'Encausse to explain herself. The hair splitting that followed added little light to the situation but gave Mme Carrère the opportunity to slip in the fact that international studies have shown that the educational level in France has decreased over the years in comparison with other countries and that in 2016 we have one out of every five French students leaving school without proper reading skills. Ouch!

If the fine points appear rather immaterial and both the old and new spelling rules are accepted (so where's the problem?), one thing is clear:  nothing unleashes French passions like touching their language.

New spelling? Oh Nooooooooo!

TAUBIRA RESIGNS; CALAIS JUNGLE; STRIKES

TA-RA TAUBIRA!

On January 27th, outspoken French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira resigned and left the Socialist government of President François Hollande in a clash over the proposed law on stripping French-born dual nationals convicted of terrorism in France of their French citizenship. Taubira had refused to support a law that she considers discriminatory because it would create two different levels of citizenship, contrary to the principle of Egalité embedded in the French Constitution. Prime Minister Manuel Valls then presented the bill himself to the National Assembly without any mention of dual citizenship, ostensibly because in practice one cannot leave an individual stateless and the law could therefore only apply to dual nationals.

The bill requires an amendment of the French Constitution and will be deliberated in parliament together with the government's request to extend the state of emergency for another three months after its expiration on February 26. Although both issues have raised reservations on the left, they are widely supported on the right and by a majority of the French people. It is now up to Taubira's successor, Jean-Jacques Urvoas, a Deputy and law professor from Brittany and a close ally of Prime Minister Valls, to defend the measures in Parliament.

Although Taubira's resignation came as a shock it was not really a surprise. Best known for her role in legislating same-sex marriage in 2013, she had had earlier run-ins with the President and Prime Minister Valls on policy issues. In August 2014 three government ministers resigned in protest against Hollande's economic policies, and the President had to intervene in a public dispute between Valls and Taubira to avoid her departure as well. Despite her 4ft. 11in. height she cast a long shadow as a feisty defender of leftist causes, and as a black woman with a background of socialist militancy her symbolic value to Hollande was undeniable.

Their break was inevitable but the parting on the steps of the Elysée Palace seemed cordial. After the President had thanked her for her significant contributions, Taubira hopped on her bike and pedaled away to loud applause of her supporters. Only to be on everybody's lips again a few days later with the publication of her well-timed book "Murmures à la Jeunesse" − a detailed defense of her opposition to the revocation of citizenship. By then, Taubira was in New York where she gave a rousing speech to a packed audience at NYU and to accept an honorary doctorate degree in law and human rights from the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.

Taubira is only the latest in a string of ministers to leave the current government. Of the 34 ministers François Hollande appointed upon his election in May 2012, only 13 remain today. All others were either fired or resigned, mostly over policy disagreements with a president they felt was betraying the socialist principles on which he was elected and had become too accommodating to the right.

This move to the right can be explained in the context of France's weak economy and continued high unemployment where Hollande's various remedies have had little or no effect so far, and the November terrorist attacks in Paris that called for a strong response such as a state of emergency, with increased house arrests and police raids without warrants. The President's anti-terrorism actions at home were perceived as strong and decisive, and raised his approval rating right after the attacks by 22 points to 50%, as shown in a December IFOP poll. A jittery nation responded well to a strong hand at the helm.

Unfortunately, all was lost again when 2015 year-end figures confirmed a near stagnant economy and yet another increase in the unemployment level. A January 7 poll by Elabe showed that only 26% of French voters approved of Hollande's leadership and that his New Year's message had failed to provide reassurance. Echos of "It's the economy, stupid" ?

CALAIS JUNGLE

Meanwhile, the refugee crisis is looming large in several EU countries, nowhere more so than in the French port city of Calais where things are coming to a boil. As I reported earlier, some 6000 refugees seeking to enter the U.K. are stuck in and around Calais where they try every day to board a ferry or stow away on a truck bound for England. The local authorities grouped them together on a vacant lot outside the city where it sheltered 1500 of them in tents with access to food and showers nearby. Soon, however, the continued flow of new arrivals overwhelmed these facilities, makeshift tents sprouted up everywhere, living conditions worsened and tensions rose. The camp became known as The Jungle, a slum made increasingly unlivable with its unsanitary conditions and the onset of winter. About half of the refugees have been transferred to other centers, but some 3000 remain today in The Jungle which heavy rains have turned into one vast field of mud.

In response the local authorities are installing heated living containers in the camp to replace the flimsy tents which are poor protection against rain and mud. They have also moved some 120 women with young children to the neighboring Jules Ferry open-air center where they are well housed in a building behind a gate that is locked at night to keep them safe from male aggressors. [Médecins Sans Frontières has noted many unwanted pregnancies, venereal disease and signs of abuse among the 200-300 women who live in the camp.]

The authorities have also begun to clear a 100 m security zone around the camp's perimeter, demolishing in the process a makeshift church and a mosque built by the refugees. Construction of the converted containers, bolted onto a cement foundation, continues but will not replace all the tents before the end of winter. This does not seem to disturb some of the diehards who still hope to get to England and will keep trying in spite of the tightened security, razor-wire-topped fences, unscalable walls and guard dogs on both sides of the border. "The biggest problem" says one of the migrants, "is that this transit, this temporary wait in Calais, could become permanent with better housing. We are at the mercy of your goodwill and benevolence, which we are very grateful for, but as able-bodied men we want to work, we want to keep hoping, we want to rebuild our lives and join our family members in England. It is hard to keep your dignity, whether you live in a leaky tent or in a comfortable box."

Church in The Jungle, before

The mayor of Calais and the Prefect of the region, both women, have repeatedly appealed to the government for help, most recently in the form of army personnel to help clear out the human traffickers in the area as well as anarchists from groups such as No Borders, who incite the migrants to riot and supply them with truncheons to fight the police.
The women met in Paris this week with Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve and the newly appointed Minister of Justice, Jean-Jacques Urvoas. At stake is not only the lot of the migrants but also the image of the City of Calais and the proper functioning of the port. Meanwhile, a number of NGOs, associations and volunteers are doing their best to keep things together in the camps.

Elsewhere in Europe, refugees are facing other battles.

The New Year's Eve wave of sexual assaults on German women in Cologne that police attributed to migrants from North Africa has put severe pressure on Angela Merkel's open-door refugee policy. Although nothing has changed for war refugees from Syria and Afghanistan, the German government has now decided to put migrants from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia on a "safe country of origin" list, which means they cannot obtain asylum.

Alarm bells are ringing in Scandinavia as well, resulting in tightened immigration policies.

Sweden announced that it may reject up to half of the 163,000 asylum applications it received in 2015 and that the failed asylum seekers will be deported over several years.

Neighboring Finland, which like Sweden has received the highest number of migrants per capita in the EU, announced similar measures and may deny up to two-thirds of the 32,000 asylum requests it is currently considering.

In Denmark parliament approved a new law that allows the confiscation of valuables over 10,000 Kroner (1,340 Euros; 1,450 dollars) from refugees and a delay in family reunification. The tough new law is meant to reduce the influx of refugees and was explained as "no different from what we ask our Danish citizens before they receive state benefits."

Switzerland and Germany have also begun to confiscate valuables and ask refugees to help pay for their upkeep "to ensure that they are not better off than our own people on welfare."

As the mood is turning, the need for a united European response to this crisis has never been more urgent.

  

OTHER UNREST

The world may be changing, but nothing seems more permanent than strikes in France. In the past two months we have seen strikes by farmers, teachers, airlines, taxis (the regular kind as well as the independent Uber kind they were striking against), and yesterday we had a strike in support of strikers. Thousands of members of the largest French union, the CGT, answered a call to strike to protest against prison sentences meted out against eight workers at a Goodyear plant who held two managers hostage for thirty hours in January 2014. They want the charges dropped.

The sentence by a court in Amiens of nine months in prison with a further 15 suspended was considered too harsh by many, but may have been exemplary in view of a pattern of increased hostage-taking and violence at plant closings over the past years. Though strikers often resort to violence and destruction, they are hardly ever punished by the courts because this usually occurs in the context of plant closings and loss of jobs.

This latest strike took place in many cities throughout France but was most keenly felt in Paris where service on the busy RER A and B lines was reduced to half, thus stranding many of the two million daily commuters. As usual, most French people supported the strikers.

ALSO IN THE NEWS...

this item in Le Monde of yesterday attempting to shed light on various press reports of the previous day on the status of the accent circonflexe. Will we lose it? Will the spelling reforms kill it off? Will it disappear at the start of the new school year? Social networks were quick to respond. The Department of Education less so, stating they had issued nothing on the subject. The rumor had started when on February 3rd the TF1 website announced that the spelling reform of 1990 would become effective at the start of the new school year in September 2016.
Here is a summary of the long article in Le Monde:

Seat of the Académie Française

In 1990 the Académie Française had proposed a simplification of spelling and accentuation of the French language, resulting in fierce opposition, passionate debate and silence…until 2008, when an official Bulletin of the Department of Education made reference to the "revised spelling" rules. Nobody seems to have noticed until in late 2015 another reference was made to "rectified spelling, as approved by the Académie Française and published in the Journal Officiel of 6 December 1990" in connection with the upcoming school year.

So where do we stand in 2016? A textbook publisher replies: "This time we all decided to incorporate the new spelling in our manuals, which was only done sporadically before. However, this remains a choice and not an obligation." And our circumflex accent? Does it stay? Well, let's say it comes and goes, depending. I'll skip the rules and their exceptions, which end with this statement of the Académie Française: "All those who already have a good comprehension of the old spelling do not have to adopt this new norm." And this conclusion of Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, French Minister of Education: "The new rules are a reference but cannot be imposed. Therefore, both the old and new spelling are correct."
Just so you know and don't get impatient about impending change.

Sir Michael Edwards

I wonder if Sir Michael Edwards had anything to do with this. Who he? The first Englishman to enter the Académie Française! London-born Edwards is a poet, translator, author and literary critic specializing in French language and literature, who was elected to join the 40 Immortals of the Académie Française in February 2013 where he took the seat of Jean Dutourd who had died in 2011. Married to a Frenchwoman, he has dual citizenship and was knighted in 2014 for  his services to Franco-British cultural relations.

The doors of the most exclusive French institution have opened just a crack to let in UN ROSBIF !
Who would have thought it?