THE FRENCH-AMERICAN FOUNDATION WEEKLY BRIEF

France

Les Echos reported that a National Assembly committee adopted the government’s proposal to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62, with very few amendments. Certain disputed aspects of the proposed legislation, such as a provision allowing for earlier retirement based on the difficulty of labor, will be re-examined when the committee reconvenes in September. The current reform measure proposes maintaining the 60 year retirement age for workers whose work has resulted in “a level of physical incapacity greater than or equal to 20 percent.” According to Europe1, unions are planning a protest for September 7, when the committee is scheduled to hold a public meeting to examine the reform.

Controversy erupted following President Sarkozy’s announcement to crack down on communities of so-called “traveling people” (“gens du voyage”). The French government designated the term in 1969 to refer to nomadic people living in France – while attached to a local community, “travelers” have a permit to circulate in caravans and mobile homes. According to Connexion, Sarkozy condemned the “behavior” of traveling people and promised to clear out all illegal settlements after riots erupted in a Saint-Aignan community when a young man was shot by police for failing to heed a road checkpoint. France24 noted that human rights groups spoke out against Sarkozy’s statement, which they deemed insensitive, and warned of “ethnically targeted evictions” of the approximately 400,000 traveling people living in France.

French air traffic was “back to normal” on Thursday, July 22, after a two-day strike by air traffic controllers resulted in the cancellation of half of all flights at Orly airport and 20% of flights at Charles de Gaulle. France24 reported that the strike arose amid plans to streamline air traffic control systems into nine regional networks, with unions worried the shift would eliminate jobs in France and elsewhere. France Soir reported that 30 percent of air traffic controllers participated in the strike, which irritated both passengers and politicians. Secretary of State for Transport Dominique Bussereau called the strike “ill-adapted and inappropriate.”

French soldiers took part in a raid against al-Qaeda militants alongside Mauritanian soldiers in the deserts of Mali, according to Le Figaro. The government confirmed the participation of French troops, but would not confirm the reports of two Spanish newspapers claiming the raid was a failed attempt to rescue Michel Germaneau, a French man who has been held hostage byal-Qaeda in northern Mali for the last three months. The French Defense Ministry said the raid was aimed at preventing a “planned attack against Mauritanian targets” by the terrorist group, which executed a British hostage a year ago, and has refused to negotiate on the release of Germaneau.

Le Parisien reported that French tobacco clerks would begin facing fines of 135 euros for selling cigarettes to customers under 18 years of age. The legal smoking age was raised from 16 to 18 in 2009, but the “application decree” imposing fines on clerks wasn’t passed until the end of May 2010, when it was “discreetly” announced in the Official Journal of legislative texts, without any accompanying government publicity. While anti-smoking activists like Gérard Audureau, president of the Rights of Non-Smokers (Droits des Non-Fumeurs), lauded the fine, they expressed doubts about its application. Meanwhile, the president of the alliance of tobacco clerks, fretted about the consequences of the decree, which he argued would be a “source of conflicts” in certain situations, like when parents send their children off to buy their cigarettes, or when clerks offend adults by asking for their IDs.