Economist.com Cities Guide: Paris Briefing - May 2006

News this month

Le rewind

Two months of widespread protests have forced the French government to drop a new labour law. The contrat première embauche (CPE), or first employment contract, would have made it easier to fire workers under the age of 26 during their first two years in a job. The CPE was rushed through parliament in early February in an attempt to encourage employers to create jobs for youths—unemployment among young people hovers at a dizzying 22%. But student groups, joined quickly by labour unions, protested against the reform. Their demonstrations gained momentum, and in March more than 1m people participated in strikes, while blockades disrupted two-thirds of all universities. Jacques Chirac, France’s president, finally caved in on April 10th, abandoning the measure for good. The government will now offer subsidies and extra training to companies that take on unqualified young staff.

Two remarkable things have emerged from the CPE debacle. First, the measure’s champion, the prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, has managed to keep his job, though his presidential prospects now look bleak. Second, the fractious political left, which rarely manages to agree on anything, coalesced against the CPE and now is more unified than it has been in years. Political pundits doubt, however, that the harmony will last, especially with the pre-campaigning season approaching.

Footing the bill

The anti-CPE protests may cost French universities dearly, since the government has asked them to pay for damage inflicted by students who occupied their campuses in March and April. About 15 campuses suffered considerable damage, mostly anti-CPE graffiti, trashed toilets and general filth from weeks of students camping in corridors. Estimates put the repair costs at €2m ($2.5m), not including damage to Paris’s historic Sorbonne university, which will need up to €1m for renovation and cleaning, according to Yannick Vallee, the vice president of the Confederation of University Presidents. The education minister, Gilles de Robien, said on April 19th that he thought the faculties were capable of footing the bill themselves. But Mr Vallee complained the cash-strapped institutions were being “punished” for the unruliness of their students.

Connecting Paris

Bertrand Delanoë, the mayor of Paris, has been seeking inspiration from his San Franciscan counterpart on how to deliver free internet access to the entire city. During an April visit to California, Mr Delanoë signed a “Digital Sister Cities” agreement with Gavin Newsom to share information and encourage technology partnerships. Mr Newsom recently reached a deal with Google and Earthlink to provide free Wi-Fi access—albeit sometimes with advertising—across San Francisco.

Mr Delanoë pledged in January that he would try to encourage greater internet coverage and provide free connections for low-income households. Access providers have met city officials in recent weeks to discuss how to wire the city. Thousands of residential buildings have already been linked via fibre-optic cable laid along the city’s sewage pipes.

Justice for Sohane

The trial of two men indicted in a notorious murder ended on April 8th. Jamal Derrar, 22, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for dousing Sohane Benziane with lighter fuel in 2002, setting her on fire and leaving her to die in an underground room on a public-housing estate in the Parisian suburb of Vitry-sur-Seine. Tony Rocca was given eight years for complicity. The court ruled that the crime was premeditated and an “act of torture or barbarism unintentionally leading to death”.

Benziane’s murder was widely viewed as another sign of the dangers for young women in the hard-edged, immigrant-dominated housing estates that rim the capital. The prosecutor claimed that the 17-year-old Benziane, who was of Algerian descent, was targeted by Mr Derrar after he got in a fight with her boyfriend. After her death, women’s groups staged rallies in an effort to end the silence surrounding violence against women in poor immigrant communities. After the verdict Benziane’s friends told journalists that they feared young men in their housing estate would now carry out revenge acts.

Happy birthday Beckett

That most French of Irishmen, Samuel Beckett, was remembered on April 13th, the 100th anniversary of his birth, with an intimate graveside gathering in his adopted city. The playwright moved to Paris in 1937 and wrote most of his famous works in French first, beginning with “Waiting for Godot”. His tomb lies in the Cimetière de Montparnasse, near other iconic figures of 20th-century literature such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. A few dozen people gathered there for a reading of excerpts from Beckett’s Nobel-Prize-winning works. Befitting this master of the absurd, the ceremony was a bit strange, with fans topping his grave with a bowler hat and old neighbours from the hamlet of Ussy-sur-Marne waxing nostalgic about his custom of handing out sweets to children.

A more formal celebration took place at the Irish embassy in Paris, where writers and academics mused on the importance of Beckett’s work and actors performed selections from his plays. The French National Library also announced that it had received the original manuscript of “Waiting for Godot”—whose plotless, endless script was first staged in Paris in 1953—from Annette Lindon, the widow of Beckett’s Irish editor. The Centre Pompidou will hold a large Beckett exhibition next year.

Catch if you can

May 2006

TransBelleville Express: open house for artists

May 12th-15th 2006

Hundreds of artists who work in studios in the up-and-coming eastern neighbourhood of Belleville open their doors in mid-May for this annual four-day festival. The quality of wares varies, of course, but this trendy, ethnically mixed area is definitely worth a detour. You can visit sites showcasing painters, photographers, sculptors, ceramists and video artists, as well as the disused “Petite Ceinture” railway tracks, a historic ring around Paris that will be an outdoor exhibition space during the event.

Starting point: Atelier d’artistes de Belleville, 32 rue de la Mare, 20th arrondissement; or Métro stops Couronne, Pyrénées or Jourdain. Tel: +33 (0)1 4636 44 09. Studios are open from 3pm to 9pm. For more information visit this website.

More from the Paris cultural calendar