Swimming today: 1.25km
One of the things that keeps me going when I'm working outside is a regular supply of podcasts. I use these to keep up to date (Doctor Karl's Science Phone-in, Kermode and Mayo's Film Review and the peerless From Our Own Correspondant), stay entertained (The Now Show, Recycled Electrons) and try to improve my French (News in Slow French, Radio Lingua's Coffee Break French and RFI's Les mots de l'actualité).
RFI's podcast last week was entitled "49.3". Two or three times a week they present a two minute explanation of a word or phrase that's been in the news, it's rather worthy in the style of a school lecture but interesting nonetheless. I was aware of 49.3 from the passage of the "Loi Macron" through the French legislature, this is an interesting piece of legislation that has some people seem to think will transform the French employment scene. The headline stories have been that shops will be able to open on five Sundays a year (or 12 with the agreement of the local Mairie) and entrance to the career of Notaire will be opened up so it isn't decided simply by the University someone went to. There are another 150 or so measures, a bit of a ragbag of measures in my opinion, where the sum of the whole seems rather less than the sum of the parts. It may be that the real objective is to keep the European Central Bank quiet on the subject of France's necessary "Structural Reforms" to meet it's borrowing and fiscal commitments to the Eurozone.
RFI's podcast last week was entitled "49.3". Two or three times a week they present a two minute explanation of a word or phrase that's been in the news, it's rather worthy in the style of a school lecture but interesting nonetheless. I was aware of 49.3 from the passage of the "Loi Macron" through the French legislature, this is an interesting piece of legislation that has some people seem to think will transform the French employment scene. The headline stories have been that shops will be able to open on five Sundays a year (or 12 with the agreement of the local Mairie) and entrance to the career of Notaire will be opened up so it isn't decided simply by the University someone went to. There are another 150 or so measures, a bit of a ragbag of measures in my opinion, where the sum of the whole seems rather less than the sum of the parts. It may be that the real objective is to keep the European Central Bank quiet on the subject of France's necessary "Structural Reforms" to meet it's borrowing and fiscal commitments to the Eurozone.
So, back to 49.3. The Finance Minister, Emmanuel Macron, has been carefully negotiating the passage of these reforms through parliament for two months. As well as the normal opposition from the opposition he's had to deal with rather lukewarm support from his own side and not having a parliamentary majority. In the end the law was passed by PM Manuel Valls using article 49.3 of the French constitution of the Fifth Republic (can you spot what I learned from the podcast yet ....?) which allows the passage of legislation without a vote although the government then calls a vote of confidence. The political machinations at present means that the confidence vote was passed. Political cartoonists at Les Moutons Enragées website weren't so supportive (Roughly translates as "Let me take care of this little one"):
As always, Hugh Schofield has an incisive piece on this and the current state of Francois Hollande's government: http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-eu-31461815
Le chiffre de l'Actu = the number in the news
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