A Lesson In Appeasement

Jacques Chirac and Dominique de Villepin haven't even stood up out of their cowering position yet and the French unions are upping the ante. After having crushed the CPE ("First Job Law") which would have been a modest and sensible labor reform, they now want to attack the CNE, which is much the same law but geared for smaller companies. So the unions would like to import the conditions in the stultified corporate sector, where workers attain new heights in goofing off and contempt for their employers, to the entrepreneurial sector such as it is. This is an object lesson in appeasing your opponents. If you give in, it only increases their bloodlust and they come at you harder looking for more. Or maybe I'm wrong and Chirac and de Villepin should just try to figure out "why they hate us."

UPDATE: Contrast the way that public sector unions are holding France hostage, to this.