oh,probably - plus my mchine keeps refusing to allow me to use the 'quote' facility telling me that I "can only use one set of quotes in a text" - any help apreciated by more intelligent folk like yourself

In my case I was forced out because my face didn't fit with the new manager after 15 years with the company - the company is struggling and was/is facing closure so that gave them the right to offer contract modifications in order to save the company - in my case I was offered conditions which effectively made me 46% worse off with an offer of 8 months work at 27 hours per week which was the least they could legally offer me - it was basically Hobsons' Choice for me and because I refused the terms the company had to offer me redundancy - two other people were offered better terms so I claimed discrimination and technical unfair dismissal - basically they forced me out because my face didn't fit and my salary too high - at 57 years of age it was a gift for me as I received redundancy money and will win my case for discrimination and technical unfair dismissal especially as I am nearly 58.I have the right to three years of dole money if I don't find work which will take me up to french retirement age.

Re-unemployment levels - it would be interesting to know the % of french unemployed are of north african descent

I wasn't a big fan of the Spirit Level book because of its sketchy data and some of the evidence was based on a few outliers however I do think the general premise sounds logical that if you have a society with more equality (as long as it is equality of a reasonable standard of living) you will have fewer social problems.

I do agree that France has a good standard of state provided public services and is well known for its high standard of healthcare and public transport however their high unemployment throughout the 1990s and 2000s has contributed to serious problems. The fact that the Far Right have such a foothold in the country is a barometer IMO of serious social problems, bigger than the scale of the UK.

Also I'm not sure that France is a good example of a country that rejects neo-liberalism, since 2007 the President has been Sarkozy and from 1995 - 2007 it was Chirac, neither of those were exactly progressives!

Constructive dismissal, I think we'd call it.

Don't get me wrong – I wasn't for a moment doubting your experience. But it seems that the system worked properly for you. I assume that, as in the UK, French employers can legitimately get rid of employees with proper reasons and proper processes.

The issue over here seems to be that, under a certain amount of time in a job, the government is saying that you cannot be dismissed unfairly – or that if you are, you should have no recourse to justice. And this – this idea that somehow an inability to sack people on illegitimate grounds (including, as Mike mentioned in the thread he's linked to above, because the employer is incompetent) is causing unemployment.



Just had a quick Google, but difficult to see anything other than polemic from both sides of the question (one: 'We Muslims are suffering more than anyone else from unemployment as a result of discrimination' and the other: 'Muslims are threatening France' – you'll know the gist). I'm not quoting either here as a source of facts.

I read it for work, found it dry as the Gobi but, like you, ended up feeling the sheer amount of the data supports their thesis.



I doubt there are many problems without some element of a far right problem – regardless of the truth of their situation. We only need to think of the extreme events in Norway last summer.

On a more general point, though (which I've touched on elsewhere), I'd also add the quality-of-life issue, which goes beyond just income and consumer goods purchased per household. Indeed, personally I'd suggest that there is a problem in conflating the two – and that any tendency to do that (or subsume one beneath the other) is very much a symptom of three decades of pretty much rampant consumerism in this country.



Oh, I don't dispute that. But there is some evidence – relevant until the recent euro crisis, at least – of Sarko pulling back a little from pushing ahead down a more US/UK-style neo-liberal road as he saw what was happening elsewhere and as the French people seemed to become a little more aware of what was being planned for them.

Ok. I was a miner in 1984-5 and one of many arrested on jumped up charges later to be kicked out of court costing tax payers millions. What a lot of peaple dont know is a deal for all sides were about to shaken on but Thatchers aides advised her to reject it and totaly go for the kill with the miners and dockers who were next up for the chop. Our town of Doncaster and areas round here has never recovered really so back to Thatcher I would gladly pay a supplement to British Gas if the Iron Lady wished to be cremated on a Low Tarrif billing. Happy Christmas to everybody exeptTory Millionaire Ministers and everyone against British Workers.

so why didn't the next labour government do something to bring back the 'workable' mines ?

just wondering like ?

yours,

a floating voter

Quite simply mate Im not sure although New Labour with Blair were not that far from the previo
us Tory Gov, in that respect and have admitted since they ditched manufacturing for finance and service industries. In Doncaster we had, Coal Mining, International Harvesters,Rail Maintenance COs, just a small section that employed Thousands. Now I hear contractors in Donny are competing with agencies employing Eastern Europeans on minimum wage

sanjunien wrote: so why didn't the next labour government do something to bring back the 'workable' mines ? just wondering like ? yours, a floating voter Most of the mines were floating too. It may have escaped your notice but water tends to flow down, rather than up and also finds its own level. Maintenance was abandoned in deep mines, they flooded, they collapsed. The lake at Trantham Gardens drained overnight when a fissure emptied into Hem Health colliery. As has already been stated, most of the pit closures had buggerall to do with economics, if they had, how come Tower Colliery in South Wales managed to continue producing viable coal for 13 years after its closure?

sanjunien wrote: so why didn't the next labour government do something to bring back the 'workable' mines ? just wondering like ? yours, a floating voter Most of the mines were floating too. It may have escaped your notice but water tends to flow down, rather than up and also finds its own level. Maintenance was abandoned in deep mines, they flooded, they collapsed. The lake at Trantham Gardens drained overnight when a fissure emptied into Hem Health colliery. As has already been stated, most of the pit closures had buggerall to do with economics, if they had, how come Tower Colliery in South Wales managed to continue producing viable coal for 13 years after its closure?

I think I answered further back on the thread, or maybe it was a different one, but my bro-in-law's pit at Bates colliery in Blyth was abandoned just a few weeks into the strike when maintenance work which was supposed to be overseen by management using union sanctioned volunteer maintenance crews was not initiated - you can speculate all you like about who made the decision to turn off the pumps in a deep under-sea mine that had just had in excess of £1million spent on its state of the art hydraulic roof jacks, but the truth is that within weeks it was not only flooded but collapsed along with all of the underground equipment.

Thats something that a lot of people tend to ignore, its wasn't just a loss of jobs and communities but a complete write off of millions (possibly billions) of pounds of equipment that was left underground in abandoned pits.

Absolute disgrace.