The French government’s response to this bizarre situation was to enact a law making it easier to fire recently hired young people during their initial period of employment. The concept was completely meritorious, namely, to make it easier for employers to hire the previous unemployed and ease the economic plight in poor Muslim areas throughout the country. The response to this law ignited the protests, stunning those in the French government who thought they were doing something worthwhile.

The law has now been rescinded, but the problem will not go away. Flushed with their success, the protestors have vowed to continue their disruptions, although they no longer have a clear objective.

College students began the protests. This in itself is fairly surprising because most of those in college will not have trouble getting jobs when they graduate. Many of the protesters were from middle or high income families who have an interest in a stable economy for the country. But it’s springtime in France. Just as baseball begins in the United States, French youth in college take to the cobblestones to protest something or other. The fact that this cause was hardly in their self interest seemed to be of no consequence.

The situation gained momentum when labor unions joined the students. The unions’ self interest was much more obvious, though not immediate. The unions reasoned that if the government could make it easier to fire new employees, then it was only a matter of time until other laws would make it easier to fire older employees, or heaven forbid reduce or eliminate some of their benefits. On a national level, these unions saw the country being subjected to the type of anguish that General Motors is enduring in the United States. Not surprisingly, organized labor was proceeding only in its own perceived economic self interest and not the national interest of France.

Then the situation turned real dicey, or more precisely ugly, when some of the Muslim youth from poor areas, the very people on whose behalf the middle and upper class students were protesting, joined the fray. Many of them, who were hooded, didn’t simply march with the protesters to show their support. Rather gangs from the poor suburbs attacked the protesters, stealing cell phones and other property from them. The police responded with a show of force, but no one thinks this round of demonstrations is over.

The French government was hopelessly split on the legislation which gave rise to the protests. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, the author of the law, insisted before Parliament that he would not give in to “the pressure of the streets.” But Interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy called for a delay in putting the law into effect. This bitter split in the government manifested itself in the government’s divided position on rescission. It’s unfortunate that Chirac and his colleagues yielded to the protestors when the law was right as a matter of policy and principle. The French economy must be reformed if it is to remain competitive.

The big loser in all of this is the French nation and its people as a whole. Commerce and transportation came to a virtual standstill. The country’s tourist industry, beginning to recover from last year’s violence, has been dealt another major blow. In the past week, half a dozen people told me that they were canceling trips to France.

The French government must have the courage to persevere in economic reform. Both the students and the unions have to realize that they have a larger interest in advancing national economic and social policies and dealing constructively with poor Muslim youth. A nation can take only so much internal dissention and destruction before it begins to unravel at its core. There is a ticking time bomb for the French Republic as it now exists.