Miss Kolka

Back on track... and straight into the Sarko-world! I wasn't actually working today, which is strange because every time there is a Sarkozy news conference I seem to be working. Maybe there are just so many. It didn't stop me from listening to two hours of Mr Le President. And it made me think. about alot of things.

Many areas were covered by Nico Sarko; education, health, enviroment and plans for 2008. The overall theme being that France had to change because THAT was what he had been elected to do - and quickly too. He said he was against the 35 hour work week France is so notoriously known for (except that its not really applied, people that have to work more just collect off-days instead of being paid extra.. like this doctor I saw yesterday, he has already collected 100 days in overtime but he can't take them because there isn't enough staff to cover the shifts ...)  So it is probable to see the implementation of Sarkozy's "work-more-to-earn-more" policy in 2008. The problem is not that people that actually work, work little but their work seems not to be recognised as such - and the wages are way too low as well. A woman I met working in a supermarket gets 690 euros for her month's work. My rent is 850 euros, and I live in 33 squaremeters and not on the Champs Elysées I'll have you note. How can that be right?

It might be right though that french workers do not work as much in neighbouring countries.  But I don't think that is the main problem here. It is the mentality and the way of seeing work as a negative force in your life - saying you like your job was actually taboo for a long time in French society. The answer is not necessarily to work longer hours. (most of the people I know work 8-10 hours a day). Shouldn't we all rather try to be more effective? To be more practical and try to make things easier for everyone instead of complicating everything with paper work and hiararchy that cannot been shuffled?  Use modern technology and computers instead of paper folders that still are very common in the french office. Its time to modernise and its only a question of being organised. Oh and also of trust. Why should employees care about the progress of their company if they are not trusted with any responsability? Especially if they wont benefit from the possible success either? One of the things addressed by the French President - of course employees should also benefit if their company is successful and not only the shareholders. It sure sounds good, I would have liked him to be more precise on how he was going to implement that in french companies. Something more concrete than just words.

Words, stupid words. And so also words about my own company and the merger decision we have been waiting for. France 24, Radio France Internationale, and Television station TV5 should all be combined under a new name "France Monde". How that is going to be done still remains unclear.. Although the president was clear about one thing: "We want to distribute French values around the world and that can only be done in French, not on english and not in arabic." Very bad news for France 24 indeed. How is that possible? Its ridiculous to assume that other countries will watch an international news station only in French or with subtitles in their language! If the president understood how a news station works he would see that is practically impossible to subtitle live events. And what a joke - The french president's proposition for a global channel to be subtitled is even the more absurd as the French don't know the concept of subtitles. Have you EVER seen subtitled programs on a French tv station (ARTE being the exception since its a franco-german project)? What makes you think, Mr President that since you and your fellow countrymen dont have the patience to read subtitles, other countries will?? The more I think about it, the more it makes me mad.

It also means I might be out of a job in a year from now.