When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

Sources

Labor Strikes And Hurricane Relief, Macron's Longest Day

Protesters in Marseille on Tuesday
Protesters in Marseille on Tuesday

-Analysis-

The honeymoon is definitely over. Just four months after he was elected to lead France, Emmanuel Macron faced his first major nationwide protest Tuesday against major labor reform plans that are seen as the central pillar of his presidency. Tens of thousands of workers have gone on strike for the day, causing some travel disruption in public transport (and, it would seem, to people willing to visit the Eiffel Tower).

But the protest, led by the country's second-largest union, the leftist CGT, is unlikely to make the new president and his government yield. Macron believes he can prevail, in part since his plans had been spelled out clearly to voters before last spring's elections. Through 36 measures that are being fast-tracked and will bypass Parliament, Macron is determined to go faster and further than any of his recent predecessors have done to liberalize France's labor code and attempt to bring down a stubbornly high unemployment rate that continues to hover near 10%.

On the tactical front, the French president has also cleverly maneuvered to "nip the emergence of a united trade-union front in the bud," to quote a headline from Le Monde. It is also notable that Macron was far from Paris on Tuesday, having headed for the French half of the Caribbean island of Saint Martin, where widespread looting and violence have brought civil-war like scenes after the devastation caused by Hurricane Irma.

Whether the trip was timed to avoid the protests back home or simply Mother Nature dictating the presidential calendar, Macron's absence could serve to reinforce a growing sentiment of an out-of-touch and sometimes arrogant leader. His approval rating plummeted in an unprecedented fashion over the summer, while a speech last week in Athens, in which he branded workers opposed to his labor reform as "slackers," has further dented his image.

But Guillaume Tabard, writing in Le Figaro, wonders whether Macron is playing the long game — and baiting his most rigid opponents. The "slacker" remark attracted strong responses from veteran opponents on the far left, whom the 39-year-old President, a newcomer, considers as "discredited ... survivors of the "ancient world"." Macron's "gamble", Tabard explains, is that whenever he will face such bursts of leftist criticism, a majority of public opinion will side with him by default.

For the moment, Macron's vantage point of today's labor protests from storm-battered St. Martin is a ready-made metaphor: Are strikes in France just part of the weather? Or is it a problem that can be fixed?

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Society

What's Spoiling The Kids: The Big Tech v. Bad Parenting Debate

Without an extended family network, modern parents have sought to raise happy kids in a "hostile" world. It's a tall order, when youngsters absorb the fears (and devices) around them like a sponge.

Image of a kid wearing a blue striped sweater, using an ipad.

Children exposed to technology at a very young age are prominent today.

Julián de Zubiría Samper

-Analysis-

BOGOTÁ — A 2021 report from the United States (the Youth Risk Behavior Survey) found that 42% of the country's high-school students persistently felt sad and 22% had thought about suicide. In other words, almost half of the country's young people are living in despair and a fifth of them have thought about killing themselves.

Such chilling figures are unprecedented in history. Many have suggested that this might be the result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but sadly, we can see depression has deeper causes, and the pandemic merely illustrated its complexity.

I have written before on possible links between severe depression and the time young people spend on social media. But this is just one aspect of the problem. Today, young people suffer frequent and intense emotional crises, and not just for all the hours spent staring at a screen. Another, possibly more important cause may lie in changes to the family composition and authority patterns at home.

Firstly: Families today have fewer members, who communicate less among themselves.

Young people marry at a later age, have fewer children and many opt for personal projects and pets instead of having children. Families are more diverse and flexible. In many countries, the number of children per woman is close to or less than one (Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong among others).

In Colombia, women have on average 1.9 children, compared to 7.6 in 1970. Worldwide, women aged 15 to 49 years have on average 2.4 children, or half the average figure for 1970. The changes are much more pronounced in cities and among middle and upper-income groups.

Of further concern today is the decline in communication time at home, notably between parents and children. This is difficult to quantify, but reasons may include fewer household members, pervasive use of screens, mothers going to work, microwave ovens that have eliminated family cooking and meals and, thanks to new technologies, an increase in time spent on work, even at home. Our society is addicted to work and devotes little time to minors.

Keep reading...Show less

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

The latest