As discussed in this chapter, a number of states
maintain employment at will for employees. However,
this is not the case in some other countries.
In France, for instance, French labor laws protect
all employees from arbitrary dismissal; employees
cannot be fi red as long as they maintain a good work
record and as long as the fi rm is economically viable.
During the spring of 2006, protests and riots
broke out across France in reaction to a proposed
change in these laws. During one weekend alone,
hundreds of thousands of protesters clashed with
police in cities throughout France.
Ironically, the proposed change in law was itself a
response to riots the previous year when unemployed
young people, many of them immigrants living in
poor neighborhoods, protested the lack of jobs. The
French government sought to loosen job protection as
a means of encouraging business to hire more young
workers. The change would have exempted workers
under the age of 25 from the legal job protections
during their fi rst two years of employment.
What was only a minor change in a law that, from
the U.S. perspective, was already quite radical in
protecting worker rights, resulted in massive riots.
As a result of these protests, the French government
withdrew its proposal.