CANCELLED FRENCH HOLIDAY MET BY STRIKES AND ABSENTEEISM

PARIS, May 16 (AFP) - Millions of French people ignored a government call to do an extra day's work Monday in order to raise money for the elderly, preferring instead to observe their traditional Pentecost bank holiday.

Written into the law a year ago, the abolition of Pentecost Monday was supposed to raise EUR 2 billion (USD 2.5 billion) annually for a special fund for the aged and handicapped - whose vulnerability had been lethally exposed during the heat wave of the previous August.*

Few voices were raised against the idea at the time, not least because France has three other national holidays in May - Workers' Day on May 1, the Feast of the Ascension** and May 8 for Victory in Europe - and some years the country grinds to a near halt.

Public transport was at a standstill in nearly a hundred towns and cities, post offices and town halls were closed, and schools offered skeleton service, as polls showed more than half the country taking the day off in defiance of official urging.

"France has preferred to take refuge in selfishness and individualism rather than show national solidarity .... The law has barely been voted by parliament when it is not just contested but generally held to be null and void," said Le Figaro.

EMPLOYEES CALL OFF STRIKE AT FRENCH ENERGY GIANT TOTAL

PARIS, May 21, 2005 (AFP) - Most employees of French oil giant Total called off a five-day strike that had paralyzed the company's refineries and helped push up world oil prices.

The employees voted to return to work after Total agreed to pay them for working on Pentecost Monday, a holiday cancelled by the government to raise public funds for the elderly and disabled.

* June 13, 2004 (Observer) - In a move reminiscent of last year's heatwave fiasco in France - when 15,000 people died and holidaying ministers blamed civil servants for not telling them in writing it was dangerously hot - the French government has decreed a heatwave without speaking to meteorologists.

** This is the secular Feast of the Ascension, not to be confused with the religious holiday of the same name and celebrated on the very same day. French Republican principles, of course, abjure religious holidays.

[Emphases added.]

Are the root principles of wealth generation entirely absent from France?