[Damien]

Originally Posted by gt1

French people smell.

dont they use the least soap per year?

Very nice prejudice
We use a lot of soap, but perfumed with cheese

Jimbo : Bugatti is originally french but now belongs to the VAG group (Volkswagen). The Veyron has been developped by a german staff, and is produced in France. I repeat : our cars are really good but above all adapted to the european market.
In addition the Renault F1 Team (with half of the staff being british) won 3 of the 3 first races of the F1 championship this year

Applefan : This issue is very very complicated, but I can try to briefly summerize the situation :

Basically, the demonstrations you've seen are against the CPE, which is defined on Wikipedia :

The contrat première embauche (CPE), translated first employment contract, is a proposed French law set to take effect in April 2006 that allows French employers to more easily hire and fire workers under the age of 26 in the first two years of their employment, whether or not it is their first job. The CPE reverses the burden of proof in those two years (usually, in an indefinite contract, the burden of proof was reversed during the probationary period, which lasted for from some days to 6 months, depending on the type of job), requiring an employee seeking legal recourse to prove they were unjustly fired rather than the employer to prove just cause for the dismissal.

The law was proposed by Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, and is currently awaiting the signature of President Jacques Chirac.

Jacques Chirac approved the contract on friday, but reduced the probationary period to 1 year.

I've got to add that the most violent actions you've seen are mostly due to young people who don't even know what is the CPE but used the demonstrations as a pretext. They are the same who were responsible of the riots in November.

I know that a lot of people here can be surprised by the difficult relations between French and their government, this is why I advise you to read this.

There is also a pretty good explanation of the last events here.

Cheers

[littleblom]

Originally Posted by stephan

Blom, are you Dutch?

Hallo Stephan

Nein, ich komme aus Hongkong!

Alles Gute
Blom

[emilia]

damien,
hv u got my message?

[Damien]

Don't worry Emilia I've got to sleep now, I'll answer you tomorrow