Today was the 5th national strike day in the fight against the so-called "Law on Chances Equality".

That law creates the now-infamous CPE (First Employment Contract) that allows bosses to fire their employees without a reason during the first two years (among other nasty things).
Chirac announced Friday that he signed the law, but asked for it not to be applied before the UMP members of parliament (MPs) could pass a law proposal, that would cancel the allowance to fire their employees without a reason, and reduce the trial period from 2 to 1 year.

The government made its best to get the public opinion to believe that the students were only fighting on these 2 points, while it's not exactly true.

We want the complete removal of this law. As time went by, we added more revendications to the platform.

The Law on "Chances Equality" :
- Creates the CPE ;
- Lower the end of compulsory school attendance from 16 to 14 ;
- Allows for 15+ y.o. kids to work during nights ;
- Creates a rule so that parents whose children miss school get their social fundings suspended.

This last point is one of the less known ones, yet it's pretty bad, because parents just sometimes *can't* ensure that their kids really are in school all the time, and usually that sort of problems happens in those who are already in difficulty, and such a law just adds a bit more pain to that.


The demonstration today was pretty good. No violence was reported while I was on duty, i.e. until the first line arrived at Place d'Italie.
As far as I know, no violence was spotted for now.

The police claim for 1,1 million protesters overall (1,0 million last week)
Unions claim for 3,1 million protesters overall (2,7 million last week).
Several cities hit their protestation record again today, after having hit it last week as well.


For your entertainment, a few pictures I took with my phone's digicam (only a 0,3 MP, sorry about the quality !)
I was as usual with the Sorbonne Security and Mediation Squad (S.O.), this time in the mobile team at the head-left of the group.

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Stay tuned for more news ! and don't believe all what the media say !