The 2006 youth protests in France occurred during the months of February, March, and April as a result of opposition to a measure set to deregulate labour. Young people were the primary participants in the protests as the bill would have directly affected their future jobs in a way that they considered negative.
The controversial bill, entitled "Loi pour l'égalité des chances" ("Equal Opportunity Law"), created a new job contract, the Contrat première embauche (CPE – First Employment Contract or Beginning Workers Contract). [1]
Under this job contract, which aimed to encourage the creation of new jobs, it would have been easier, during a contract's first two years, for workers under twenty-six years old to be fired. It would have allowed employers the opportunity to terminate employment of workers under twenty-six without any reason, within their first two years of employment. [2] Those opposed to the First Employment Contract were worried that it could compromise job security, encourage social pressure with a view to lowering wages, and impede employees in having legal recourse in cases of sexual harassment or other abuse, since this could lead to their subsequently being fired.
Proponents of the bill argued that France's tightly regulated employment market discourages French businesses from employing staff, which has led to France suffering high unemployment. High unemployment, especially for young immigrants, was seen as one of the driving forces behind the 2005 civil unrest in France and this unrest mobilized the perceived public urgency for the First Employment Contract. Youths are particularly at risk as they have been locked out of the same career opportunities as older workers, contributing to both a rise in tensions amongst the economically disenfranchised underclass, and, some claim, a brain drain of graduates leaving for better opportunities in Britain and the United States.
The French population was roughly split on the issue of whether the First Employment Contract should be implemented. The contract was first proposed after the civil unrest that occurred in France in October and November 2005. French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin's rating dropped to a four-month low of forty-two percent, [3] largely because of the recent protests against the bill. He stated though that he had the backing of French President Jacques Chirac. Later on, polls in L'Express and Paris-Match displayed a swing of the population behind protesters – around 70% were against the CPE law when it was promulgated by president Chirac.
The bill also included the possibility of manual labour apprenticeships for 14-year-olds, suspension of family welfare in cases of students skipping school (a measure long in the programme of the far-right National Front party), and night labour being permitted for youths as young as 15 years old (as compared to 16 years old before).
Protests against the bill originally occurred before the bill was approved by Dominique de Villepin. On 7 February, between 200,000 and 400,000 people took part in 187 demonstrations. Some universities, including Rennes, were also occupied during February.
Over a million took part in protests on 7 March. On 9 March, around 38 universities were on strike.
Protests across France on 16 March led to widespread disruptions. Approximately one hundred bicyclists barricaded streets around the Louvre in protests unrelated to the labour contract. [4] (The protest around the Louvre concerned the lack of sports teachers in schools.) Another hundred protesters descended on City Hall in Rennes, refusing to leave. Other, mostly peaceful, protests occurred throughout the country, in cities such as Marseille. Many universities, including the University of Toulouse, were forced to close on 16 March as some wanted them to remain open and others wanted them closed during the large protests.
Media attention focused on the violent element of the demonstrations in Paris on 18 March, when as many as 700,000 protesters converged on the city's Place de la Nation. Once the protesters departed from the meeting, a few dozen rioters began to torch cars and vandalize store fronts as police were called in to calm the situation. To suppress the crowd, police officers began to spray tear gas.
In the evening, new clashes occurred on the Place de la Sorbonne, between a hundred demonstrators and the police, until 1 am.
A protester from that night, Cyril Ferez, a trade unionist from the Sud-PTT union, trampled by riot police, was in a coma for three weeks after skirmishes in the Place de la Nation, Paris. [5]
That day saw 156 people being arrested in Paris.
Protesters in Marseille were also sprayed with tear gas after some of them climbed Marseille's City Hall and replaced a French flag with a flag that proclaimed "anticapitalism."
Throughout the rest of the country, less violent protests occurred. In the estimated 160 protests organized around the country, police estimated that half a million students and labourers participated. Organizers estimated the number was closer to 1.5 million. [6]
Students (including high school students) demonstrations began to become daily, and often were the site of clashes with the police.
After large demonstrations and subsequent riots on 16 and 18 March, on the 21st the Dijon students' union called for a general strike, [7] as demanded by left-wing papers such as Libération. A meeting that day of various labour and student groups [8] agreed for another 'day of action' against the law, including strikes, demonstrations and university occupations across the country.
Riots erupted again after a day of relative calm in several cities in France. According to the French national ministry of education, universities had continued their strike and 21 universities out of 84 were entirely blocked by students. In total, 67 universities were either on strike or blockage.
CPE opponents convened a fourth national 'day of action' against the law on 28 March, including strikes, demonstrations and university occupations across France. Strikes disrupted rail and air transport, public education and mail services while between 1.055 million people (according to police estimates) and 2.71 million (according to union estimates) marched against the law. [9] [10] Much of the discrepancy in crowd estimates is in Paris where the police estimated 92,000 demonstrators while unions estimated 700,000. Whatever the sources, this is double the number that on 16 March demonstration, and more than during the December 1995 protests against the reform of pensions laws. 600 persons were arrested by the police [11] Police repression also took place in minor towns, such as Lons-le-Saunier (Jura) or Lannion (Côtes d'Armor).
In total 3.1 million people (according to the CGT) or 1 million (according to the police) people turned out to protest the law throughout the country, while rail and air transport were affected. [12]
The CPE was scrapped by Chirac on 10 April under the pressure of ongoing protests and blockade across France, though some protests continue against the law of which it was part (the loi pour l'égalité des chances [Equal Opportunity Law], or LEC). [13] Protests were smaller in scale as the movement against the CPE split into those that wanted to fight the LEC and those that considered the victory against the CPE to be an acceptable compromise. [14] Because of this split, and because of the universities' Easter holidays, the movement lost its momentum and within a week of the law's withdrawal, the major acts of protest, such as university occupations, had essentially ceased. By 18 April the students at every one of the blocked universities had either voted to reopen immediately, or were on holiday with no blockade planned afterward.
During the dispute, numerous student bodies went on strike, or occupied parts of their faculties. Due to police counter-attacks at the Sorbonne, an initial occupation was repulsed – yet the national student federation UNEF claimed that the number of occupations carried on increasing – by the end of March, 68 of France's 89 universities were on strike according to UNEF. [15]
"The strikes that formed the backdrop to the protests disrupted aspects of daily life from transportation to services." (New York Times Database). Many places within those areas were with closed or worked a lot slower than they normally did. Some places that were affected were universities, schools, post offices, etc. [16]
According to the Collectif Assistance Juridique (CAJ) independent group, a total of 4,500 people were arrested during the events. Among them, 1,950 were kept in garde à vue and 635 prosecution cases opened. Less than 15% of the arrested people were therefore presented to the magistrates, due to insufficient evidence of alleged legal violations. The CAJ note that many of the people presented before the courts had no previous criminal record and were far from the profile of "criminal rioters". They included many leaders of the movement, in particular outside Paris. A 24 March 2006 internal administrative order asked the magistrates not to be too lenient on their judgments. 42% of the persons presented before courts passed in immediate comparution, a specific (and controversial) procedure, which allow them to be judged on the spot. [17] [18] During the 1994 demonstrations against the CIP, a student law prepared by Balladur's government, 1000 persons only had been arrested, although the clashes had been more violent. [11] Although Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy stated on 16 March that his "priority was to arrest casseurs" (rioters), the independent CAJ (Judicial Assistance Group) noted that the vast majority of arrestations hadn't been of on-the-spot witnessed violence (flagrant délit) and that many were contested. For example, on 31 March a US citizen visiting Paris was detained by the police, while on 7 April an old man getting out of a supermarket was also detained. [11] Furthermore, many young people from the suburbs were blocked from demonstrating in Paris. According to the government, this was to impede turmoils in the capital, but critics such as the CAJ have spoken of a negation of presumption of innocence and of "racial and social discrimination", since some categories of the population – mainly youth living in housing projects, those accused of having taken part in the riots in autumn 2005 – were blocked from exercising their civil rights of demonstrating against a law that affected them as well as other categories of the population. [19] These blockings in suburbs' train stations have provoked in some cases clashes with the police, for example in Savigny-sur-Orge, in Saint-Denis or in Les Ulis... "There is no evidence which permit us to establish a parallel between the young rioters of November and the disturbing elements of this spring", notes the CAJ report, countering the Interior Minister's claims. Furthermore, police abuse was reported on a number of cases, including Cyril Ferez, a trade union member who entered coma state for several weeks following the 18 March demonstration. In Caen Charlotte entered coma for a day; Victor had two ribs broken, etc. A three-year-old child was placed 24 hours in observation after having inhaled gas. On 16 March, the Parisian préfecture de police announced that 18 demonstrators had been injured. The IGS (internal affairs department) was charged of Cyril Ferez' case (who was in coma for several weeks) and litigation was initiated against police officers allegedly excessively brutal and violent during arrests. [20] Additionally, cooperation between the police forces and the trade union "service orders" (SO, in charge of the demonstrations) was observed, including handing-over of several demonstrators to the police by the trade union's SO. [21] Finally, the CAJ note the disproportion of sentences toward young demonstrators, while others acts of vandalism currently committed by farmers or viticulturists were more lightly punished. It thus alluded to this Alsatian mayor accused of having burned 14 travel trailers but who was condemned only to six months on parole, contrasting with the sentences given to demonstrators (for example, a high school student condemned to 41 days of jail in Fleury-Mérogis because he had burnt two garbage cans before his school). [22]
The 1967 Hong Kong riots were large-scale anti-government riots that occurred in Hong Kong during British colonial rule. Beginning as a minor labour dispute, the demonstrations eventually escalated into protests against the colonial government. The protests were partially inspired by successful anti-colonial demonstrations in Portuguese Macau which had occurred a few months prior.
Ungdomshuset was the popular name of the building formally named Folkets Hus located on Jagtvej 69 in Nørrebro, Copenhagen, which functioned as an underground scene venue for music and rendezvous point for varying autonomist and leftist groups from 1982 until 2007 when—after prolonged conflict—it was torn down, and later also for its successor, located on Dortheavej 61 in the adjacent Bispebjerg neighbourhood. Due to the ongoing conflict between the Copenhagen Municipality and the activists occupying the premises, the building on Jagtvej was the subject of intense media attention and public debate from the mid-1990s till 2008.
The contrat première embauche was a new form of employment contract pushed in spring 2006 in France by Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin. This employment contract, available solely to employees under 26, would have made it easier for the employer to fire employees by removing the need to provide reasons for dismissal for an initial "trial period" of two years, in exchange for some financial guarantees for employees, the intention being to make employers less reluctant to hire additional staff. However, the enactment of this amendment to the so-called "Equality of Opportunity Act" establishing this contract was so unpopular that soon massive protests were held, mostly by young students, and the government rescinded the amendment.
A contrat nouvelle embauche, known as a new employment contract, new recruitment contract or new-job contract in English is a French employment contract proposed by Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin (UMP) which came into force by ordinance on August 2, 2010. The measure was enacted by the prime minister after he was authorized by Parliament to take legislative measures to stimulate employment. Unlike the later First Employment Contract (CPE) which was repealed in 2010, after protests the CNE has been used as a job contract despite opposition from trade unions.
The May Thirtieth Movement was a major labor and anti-imperialist movement during the middle-period of the Republic of China era. It began when the Shanghai Municipal Police opened fire on Chinese protesters in Shanghai's International Settlement on May 30, 1925. The shootings sparked international censure and nationwide anti-foreign demonstrations and riots.
Sein Lwin was a Burmese politician and retired military general in the Myanmar Army. He was served as the sixth president of Burma for 17 days in 1988, following the resignation of San Yu.
The 2008 Greek riots started on 6 December 2008, when Alexandros Grigoropoulos, a 15-year-old Greek student, was killed by a special officer in Exarcheia district of central Athens. The killing of the young student by police resulted in large protests and demonstrations, which escalated to widespread rioting, with numerous rioters damaging property and engaging riot police with Molotov cocktails, stones and other objects. Demonstrations and rioting soon spread to several other cities, including Thessaloniki, the country's second-largest city, and international cities in solidarity. Newspaper Kathimerini called the rioting "the worst Greece has seen since the restoration of democracy in 1974".
The 2009 May Day protests were a series of international protests that took place across Europe, Asia and in the other parts of the world due to the financial crisis of 2007–2008 and the resulting Great Recession. Several May Day marches, which are traditional events, had turned violent in Germany, Turkey and Venezuela as riot police battled protesters in their respective countries. Banks and shops had been attacked in Turkey.
The 1982 demonstrations in Poland refers to anti-government street demonstrations organized by underground Solidarity to commemorate the second anniversary of the Gdańsk Agreement. The bloodiest protest occurred in southwestern Poland, in the town of Lubin, on August 31, 1982. The Lubin demonstration resulted in three protesters killed by Communist services, and an unknown number of wounded. On the same day, rallies and demonstrations took place in several cities across the country. According to Solidarity sources, there were four more victims—in Wrocław, Gdańsk, Nowa Huta, and Toruń. According to official government sources, there were demonstrations in 66 cities.
The word serhildan describes several Kurdish protests and uprisings since the 1990s that used the slogan "Êdî Bese" ("Enough") against Turkey. Local shops are often closed on the day of demonstrations as a form of protest.
French labour law is the system of labour law operating in France.
The 2010 United Kingdom student protests were a series of demonstrations in November and December 2010 that took place in several areas of the country, with the focal point of protests being in central London. Largely student-led, the protests were held in opposition to planned spending cuts to further education and an increase of the cap on tuition fees by the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government following their review into higher education funding in England. Student groups said that the intended cuts to education were excessive, would damage higher education, give students higher debts, and broke campaign promises made by politicians.
This is a list of crises situations and major protests in countries of Europe since the year 2000.
The 2010–2012 Algerian protests were a series of protests taking place throughout Algeria, lasting from 28 December 2010 to early 2012. The protests had been inspired by similar protests across the Middle East and North Africa. Causes cited by the protesters included unemployment, the lack of housing, food-price inflation, corruption, restrictions on freedom of speech and poor living conditions. While localized protests were already commonplace over previous years, extending into December 2010, an unprecedented wave of simultaneous protests and riots, sparked by sudden rises in staple food prices, erupted all over the country starting in January 2011. These were quelled by government measures to lower food prices, but were followed by a wave of self-immolations, most of them in front of government buildings. Opposition parties, unions, and human rights organisations then began to hold weekly demonstrations, despite these being illegal without government permission under the ongoing state of emergency; the government suppressed these demonstrations as far as possible, but in late February yielded to pressure and lifted the state of emergency. Meanwhile, protests by unemployed youth, typically citing unemployment, hogra (oppression), and infrastructure problems, resumed, occurring almost daily in towns scattered all over the country.
The Corpus Christi Massacre or El Halconazo was a massacre of student demonstrators during the Mexican Dirty War in Mexico City on 10 June 1971, the day of the Corpus Christi festival. Nearly 120 protesters were killed, among them a 14-year-old boy.
The UC Davis pepper spray incident occurred on November 18, 2011, during an Occupy movement demonstration at the University of California, Davis. After asking the protesters to leave several times, university police pepper sprayed a group of student demonstrators as they were seated on a paved path in the campus quad. The video of UC Davis police officer Lt. John Pike pepper-spraying demonstrators spread around the world as a viral video and the photograph became an Internet meme. Officer Alex Lee also pepper sprayed demonstrators at Pike's direction.
The 2012 Quebec student protests (movement) were a series of student protests led by students individually such as the Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (ASSÉ), the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec, and the Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec against a proposal by the Quebec Cabinet, headed by Liberal Premier Jean Charest, to raise university tuition from $2,168 to $3,793 between 2012 and 2018. As part of the protest movement, a series of widespread student strikes were organized, involving half of Quebec's student population by April 2012. A third of Québécois students continued to participate in the strike by its 100th day, while a quarter million had participated during its peak. Other students continued to attend their courses.
Since Emmanuel Macron was elected President of France on 7 May 2017, a series of protests have been conducted by trade union activists, left-wing activists and right-wing activists in opposition to what protesters consider to be neoliberal policies and globalism, his support of state visits by certain world leaders, his positions on French labour law reform, as well as various comments or policy proposals he has made since assuming the presidency.
The sentencing of nine Catalan independence leaders in a 2019 trial by the Supreme Court of Spain triggered protests in Catalonia. They were convicted of sedition and other crimes against the Spanish state for their role in the organization of the 2017 Catalan independence referendum.
The 1986–1987 protests in France is mass protests and a political movement that erupted after a new law signed by the government in November 1986, named the Devaquet law, sparking mass student protests and Strikes across France from 28 November 1986 – 11 January 1987. Riots and looting occurred throughout the city of Paris but spread to 3 other cities.
