France has 60 million inhabitants. Yesterday between one million (police figure) and three million (trade union figure) of them took to the streets in protest marches against the government’s youth employment bill (CPE). The bill, which was approved by a large parliamentary majority, allows small companies to fire workers under 26 without cause during the first two years on the job while paying them only 8% of their salary in damages. The bill applies only to young people in their first job. Nevertheless, the French trade unions joined the student protests out of principle. In France a job is virtually owned by the employee and cannot be taken from him unless the employer pays heavy damages.

Last year I wrote an article about how Swedish society is disintegrating and is in danger of collapsing, at least in certain areas and regions. The country that gave us Bergman, ABBA and Volvo could become known as the Bosnia of northern Europe. The “Swedish model” would no longer refer to a stable and peaceful state with an advanced economy, but to a Eurabian horror story of utopian multiculturalism, socialist mismanagement and runaway immigration. Some thought I was exaggerating, and that talk of the possibility of a future civil war in Sweden was pure paranoia. Was it?

Hungary and Poland quarrel about vodka. Two other nations, Spain and Catalonia, quarrel about cava, a sparkling wine that resembles champagne. However, while the Poles and the Hungarians quarrel about the definition of vodka, with the Poles wanting to prohibit the Hungarians from calling their vodka “vodka”, the Spanish and the Catalans quarrel about the definition of a nation, with the Spanish wanting to prohibit the Catalonians from calling their nation a nation.

One of the rare Belgian churches that is packed every weekend is the church of Saint Anthony of Padova in Montignies-sur-Sambre, one of the poorest suburbs of Charleroi, a derelict rust belt area to the south of Brussels. Holy Mass in Montignies is conducted in Latin and lasts up to four hours. Yesterday over 2,000 people attended the service by Father Samuel (Père Samuel). The priest’s sermon dealt with his persecution. The Belgian authorities are bringing the popular priest to court on charges of racism.

This article was written by Martin De Vlieghere and Paul Vreymans.

On 23 and 24 March the European Council is meeting to discuss the future of Europe’s social model. The very essence of the welfare state is at stake. Europe’s present social model is unable to tackle the modern challenges of globalization, and has left Europe with gigantic problems: an unsurmountable public debt, a rapidly ageing population, 19 million unemployed, and an overall youth unemployment rate of 18%. The unemployment figures may easily be doubled to account for hidden unemployment. The untold reality is that Europe’s real unemployment stands at the level of the 1932 Depression.

Wouter Bos, the leader of the Dutch Social-Democrats, is angry with the press for publishing his concerns about the growing number of Muslim politicians within his party. Later generations will probably look upon 2006 as a watershed year in Dutch politics. The municipal elections on 7 March were won by Bos’s Labour Party, the Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA) and lost by the two governing parties of the center-right coalition in The Hague, the Christian-Democrat CDA and the Liberal VVD. As we reported earlier the balance was tipped by the Muslim vote.

France is dying. We are witnessing its agony, while the patient refuses to take the medicine that can cure him. French university students have been rioting for over more than a week against a new labour bill recently passed by a large majority in parliament: the First Employment Contract (CPE, Contract Premier Embauche). In a country where the street is more powerful than parliament it is highly unlikely that the CPE will ever be enforced. Moreover, it looks like the CPE is going to be Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin’s Waterloo.

If you were a very wealthy person and you really wanted to improve the lot of your fellow man by donating a large sum of money in the most cost-effective way possible, what would you do?

According to the new Forbes list of the richest people, there are almost 800 billionaires in the world. Many of them are engaged in philanthropic work and give huge sums for programs to help the world’s poor by providing medical care, schooling, housing and other desirable programs.

Wouter Bos, the leader of the Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA), the Dutch Labour Party, is worried about the high number of immigrants in the ranks of his own party. Bos won the Dutch municipal elections on 7 March by catering for the immigrants, who consequently tipped the balance in favour of the PvdA. Almost half the elected PvdA politicians in major Dutch cities where the PvdA is the largest party, such as Amsterdam and Rotterdam, are now Muslims.

The Islamic Faith Community, an umbrella organisation of 27 radical Muslim organisations in Denmark, is lodging a complaint against the state of Denmark with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Geneva (by the way, take a look at the Office’s logo which ressembles the Arabic script for Allah). The reason for the complaint is last Wednesday’s refusal of the Danish director of public prosecutions to press criminal charges against Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that published 12 Muhammad cartoons in September 2005
(see them here, halfway down the page).