A leftist deputy has declared: "To create discrimination based on age transgresses fundamental rights!"

In other words, people have a right for other people to have to continue employing them, whether those other people want to or not. The "fundamental right" to a job over-rides the rights of other people when they are called "bosses."

The fact that many students can think only in terms of "rights," but not in terms of consequences, shows a major deficiency in their education. The right to a job is obviously not the same thing as a job. Otherwise there would not be a 23 percent unemployment rate among young French workers.

The law can create equal rights for inexperienced young workers and for older workers with a proven track record but the law cannot make them equally productive on the job or equally risky to hire. Nor is rioting likely to make employers any more likely to want young workers working for them.

Fifteen minuites alone in a room with a rioter and a textbook, that's all I ask. I'll just draw him a few graphs and demonstrate how requiring people to keep you on only has the effect of not having them hire you. The only long run solution, I think, is state enterprise, which doesn't have to worry about little things like breaking even. Well that or more reasonable labor laws.