Moving France forward

No one throws a good protest quite like the French — and already a number of French labor unions are grumpy with President Emmanuel Macron and not afraid to show it.

This is how the Associated Press reported on one such protest march Tuesday:

“Dozens of big rigs drove at a snail’s pace around the Arc de Triomphe, causing rushhour traffic snarls as protesters danced and waved flags on a flat-bed truck with a severed plastic head from a funfair ride.”

Yes, carnival workers, who have their own set of grievances, made up a sizable number of the Paris protest. There was also the naked protester with the guitar. And tourists attempting to ascend the Eiffel Tower had to settle for a view from the first platform — which they had to reach by stairs. Add in a contingent of anarchists and you have the total package.

Similar marches were staged in Marseille, Le Havre and around France.

Macron, who campaigned on a platform of bringing the sclerotic French labor system and its ancient work rules into the 21st Century — kicking and screaming if need be — has actually embarked on a program to do just that.

The presidential decrees are aimed at reducing the power of some rather powerful unions — hence the protests — and giving companies more power to fire and to set their own workplace rules. Now keeping in mind the French unemployment rate is currently around 10 percent — and far higher among young people and in minority communities — Macron is surely on the right track.

Macron himself missed all the excitement. He was off inspecting damage to French islands in the Caribbean ravaged by Hurricane Irma.