Ophelia's Journal.

Ophelia · Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2008 3:53 pm Post subject: Minimum wage.

The children of immigrants who are rebelling are a minority who are made visible by the media and who provoke strong reactions, both because they refuse our society, and, in some respects I think, because they have integrated the attitude of native French children so well.

Whenever there is trouble in the suburbs and the children of immigrants are inerviewed, one of them will be seen on camera saying "I hate France!"-- only not in such polite terms.

Lenghty explanations (by commentators) will follow of how this is provocation, disappointment with us, rage at feeling rejected...

And here the French are torn. Among people who vote on the right, and especially the elderly, some will be outraged and vote for the far-right, who always do better after such events.

Others will be stunned (perhaps the "nationally depressed" feeling I mentioned before. We know for example that those old buildings in the suburbs shouldn't be there anymore, should be replaced by more humane houses or flats).

Others will concentrate on empathy with the young people.
To me it seems that this sometimes looks like breast-beating on the part of socially-minded leftist people. I interpret this as "They're right to hate us, we deserve it. If I were them, I would hate and punish the French much more."

And where things get really conflictual is when some of those youngsters are asked about work and they say: "There's no work here (in the suburbs). The only work there is is at the minimum salary. And I'm certainly not going to work for the minimum wage!"
Also they say they don't want to do any manual work (we have a lot of unemployment, but a lot of jobs are vacant in construction working for example).

Now the minimum salary, together with our social safety net, is actually something to be proud of. It's not a full pass for entry in the consumer society, but it's decent, and higher than in many other countries.
At the moment it's 8.44 euros per hour. It wouldn't make much sense converting into dollars at the current exchange rate, but the idea that you don't want to work for that money is absurd, especially when you have no qualifications.

What they imply, for some of them, is that they can earn about 1000 euros per month by drug dealing at the lowest level, but not every one of them can be drug dealer.
Anyway, most of the people who hear this on TV started their working life with the minimum wage or just a little above it (like me), and it's hard to swallow when you hear others look down on it.

Yet in this they are not so different from many of the native French of the same age.
They say that it's no use studying because the French won't give them highly paid jobs (which is partly true), and they'd rather be unemployed than do the same jobs as their fathers.

So some values do get transmitted, perhaps horizontally if not from one generation to the next.. Native French youngsters won't do those jobs either, though working in a supermarket for the minimum wage would be acceptable .

The link bewtween making money and making efforts to get into the well-paid jobs seems to have evaporated.
It's always " society owes it to us..."

The whole of society is responsible for this. Part of this is what each individual parent or adult tells or doesn't tell the kids, like a global lie in which everybody wants the others do do the work of being truthful but wants the right to lie within his own family if that's the easiest way.

The Baccalauréat as the entrance exam to universities made perfect sense when it was created.
In the nineteenth century, when it was decided everybody had a right to free secondary and university education, nodybody thought it necessary to add "if you have the brains for university and if you're willing to study".
Now, it would be an offense to say such things.
There are protest movements in universities at the moment.
Yesterday a university student explained on TV that one of the mottos was
"the right to succeed for everybody".
She said it was absurd, and explained it exactly the way I would have interpreted it: every student who accessed university without an entrance exam now should have the RIGHT to get a pass grade, that is 10/20, in his exams.

Lawrence · Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2008 11:42 am Post subject: Immagration

Dearest Ophelia,
I read through this (thread, blog, post,) I don't know the proper term. I formed the opinion that you are wrestling with the topical issues of this subject as it pertains to France. It is my opinion, when we deal with topical issues we can only treat the sympton not affect a cure. One persons opinion for a solution is as good as another. Changing policies usually just moves the pinch points of pain from one place to another. You may notice from my essay I am incapable of talking, or taking on, topical topics.

Here is my contribution for your consideration. By what right does one person on this planet have to tell another person on this planet where they can live? I mean from the logical core of reasoning. Do not start with nationalistic rights based on the because I was here first attitude.

I can not see any logical reason why the flow of labor should not be as free and easy on this planet as the flow of capital. I am addressing this issue in my Chapter 8 of my essay. It is far and away the most difficult to write.

Keep on keeping on sweet Ophelia. Come back to my blog anytime.
Lawrence

PS One thing Abbe Pierre said that has stuck with me is: "The language of love is not talk. The language of love is what we do."

Ophelia · Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 4:34 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the feedback Lawrence.

stcamp · Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 7:33 pm Post subject:

Ophelia,

You truly puzzle me. Then the French as a whole do. I do not think the future bodes well for the French. I hope I am wrong. I would like to believe the problems you write about were going to be resolved to everyones benefit. Alas, I don't think so. I would write here why, but suprisingly, at least to me, is the amount of anger I feel about this subject.

I am curious what you think about Europes demographics. France has addressed this for more sucessfully than the rest of Europe. Russia is probably the worst case scenario.

Perhaps what bothers me is the knowledge that I am watching a civilization die. Or perhaps it the change, and with it the disapearance of my world.

Steve

Lawrence · Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 10:17 pm Post subject:

Dear Ophelia,
What I'm trying to say in my essay is our systems, governmental and spiritual, are defective. We are unable to fix them in the same way a size 12 shoe does not fit a size 5 foot. We can not fix them until we understand why they are defective and how a new system might meet our needs. My comment to stcamp is that western civilization is headed for the toilet not just France. If the people cannot see that we have more money and less value, more wealth and less character, more time and less patience, etc., things are not going to change. Only the faces of the political landscape promising anything for the power to line their pockets will change.
The French revolution eleminated the Roman Catholic Church declaring the ruler annointed by God. (Actually Nepolean placed the crown on his own head but the cardinal handed him the crown.) But we have learned from our democracies the ologarchy doesn't do any better job of governing, or less tyrannical, than a monarch. I'm struggeling with my chapter 8 which will address this issue. I'll let you know when I post it. Lawrence

Ophelia · Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 3:56 am Post subject:

Thanks, Steve and Lawrence.

Steve wrote:

Ophelia · Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 4:18 am Post subject:

To return to the idea of everybody having a right to live where they choose:

Before countries had the means to control their borders, immigration to Europe meant taking lands by force, by hordes of people (Genghis Kahn's warriors) or small groups (Huns, Vikings...)
They wanted the good lands that were already settled, not the deserts and bogs the locals didn't care about.

Once there was control, the colonies, then independent countries of the new world took in immigrants generously, but only insofar as it suited them.
In France, or other European countries, there never was a feeling that we needed large numbers of immigrants to help us settle the wilderness.

The US were generous and unrestrictive (towards European immigrants) in the 19th century, with the 1869 Homestead Act for example.
In the 20th century, they set quotas and regulated things, starting with the 1921 Quota Act and the 1924 Immigration Act.

This is what I think France should do (simultaneously):

1- Improve relations with the immigrants who are already here, and create the conditions for better integration of the next newcomers.

2- Concentrate on the immigration from Eastern Europe that we have to accept by law.

3- Then take immigration from other countries to bring our immigration level to the same as that as other rich EU members ( at the moment, immigration to France is lower than immigration to Germany for example).

I think this is already an ambitious goal, but it is something that can be expected of us.

Also, another difference with the US in the 19th century is that it cost the state next to nothing to take in those immigrants: the strong survived due to their own efforts, the weak and the sick died. The US thought they had been given a chance.

Now, somebody who arrives in France illegally has the right to social benefits: schooling, health care, but also financial help.
Some of those measures are recent, and I thoroughly agree with these new laws, but I simply cannot see how they could be applied to the millions of people who might want to come, however harsh this may sound.

Ophelia · Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 9:41 am Post subject: The suburbs, continued

The situation in the suburbs built in the 1960's deteriorated, and yet there was no lack of interest or involvement on the part of the government, nor a lack in public spending.

We have a Ministre de la Ville (Minister for cities), and working under him or her a Secrétaire d'Etat aux Banlieues, perhaps you would call her a junior Minister, whose job is to deal exclusively with the suburbs. In theory this could also mean residential suburbs, but everybody knows that those are happy to finance themselves and don't need ministerial attention.

So, what went wrong? Did corrupt officials appropriate the money? Not at all.

During the last twenty years, we have had 17 different Secrétaires d'Etat aux Banlieues, and each one of them came up with his or her "Plan pour les Banlieues", so it's difficult to build up much enthusiasm or expectation every time a new one is announced.

The mayors of the suburbs explain that there are so many plans and laws that they have to employ people whose jobs is to keep up with the many regulations and formulate requests for subsidy from the government accordingly.
All those plans have piled up, and every time there was a problem the Secrétaire d'Etat was sacked, and the whole process started again.

What did Nicolas Sarkozy do? Appoint Fadela Amara as Secrétaire d'Etat aux Banlieues. She is a good choice, because she comes from the suburbs and has done excellent work in associations (she is from the "Ni Putes ni Soumises" association), so people have a lot of respect for her.
She presented her plan a few weeks ago, I doubt it is extremely different from the previous ones, but I just hope Sarkozy will keep her for four years and let her work.

Lawrence · Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 9:58 am Post subject:

Dear Ophelia,
We have a saying that it is insane to do the same thing over again and expect different results. The governmental systems are broken.
RE: Immigration. Humanity has always claimed territory by agression. Do we want to continue with the mindset that it is appropriate to use force to get what you want when you want it. If we do not want to continue, we choose another mind set to live by, set the goal, and then design the method to transition from where we are to where we want to be.
RE: Women. It is said the women's liberation movement must fail because they have no goal as to what a women can become. She has always been defined through the eyes of a man.
RE: Political Action. I think it is good you are concerned with the tribulations of your country. I wish you well in your effort. When I get Chapter 8 of my essay finished I'll give you a PM. I hope you would find it useful. Best wishes, Lawrenceindestin

Ophelia

There is also a lot of (positive) vitality in the suburbs.

Last Friday, the most popular evening news programme, TF1, gave a report about bloggers who had founded a very interesting site at Bondy, and they said that there was a lot of interest from the rest of the country to see what they are doing. Well, I'm sure they saw the difference at Bondy when I , together with half of the country, logged in the next morning.

Bondy is one of those suburbs that people would normally not know even existed, or if they did, they might feel a little anxious, just because of its geographical situation: in the 93 département (Seine Saint-Denis), 9km to the North East of the Porte de Pantin metro station in Paris.

I'll give the reference from wiki so you can see it on the map.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bondy

Ophelia · Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 10:09 am Post subject:

Lawrence wrote:

Ophelia

Want your information about BondyBlog in English? No problem!
Here is what I found on the web (from 2006).

Ophelia · Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 10:44 am Post subject: demographics

Steve, I'm not sure which aspect of demogrphics you're interested in, so I'll quote from the wiki page:


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