Every year around this time secular France venerates the Holy Ghost. Not in her churches but on her beaches. At her campgrounds. With packaged tours at her resorts. By sleeping in.

Last year, the Jack pack tried to arrogate this yearly communion with the Holy Ghost for the commonweal. Yes. [Pause.] Well, that didn't work out too well.

This year, a "new impulse" government had another go and re-architected the law. Tearing a page from the foreign service playbook, the government adopted a confuse-a-cat approach.

SCRAPPED FRENCH HOLIDAY PROMPTS CHAOS

PARIS June 5, 2006 (Guardian) - Until last year, Pentecost Monday was a public holiday. But the government said something had to be done to mark the 2003 heatwave that killed 15,000 people. Seizing on a national mood of soul-searching, it decided to scrap the bank holiday for four years. By sacrificing one day off a year [Journée de Solidarité], it said, workers could fund more carers for elderly and disabled people.

But the goodwill gesture has sparked chaos this year, with 60% of the population taking the day off and unions for those who have to clock in threatening to strike. The daily Libération ran a front-page headline calling it the "dumbest day" and business leaders have lampooned the government's bizarre decisions.

Many parents who have to work have no childcare as state schools and nurseries are closed. ... Government ministries, unemployment offices, post offices and some museums and shops are shut. But many employees in private firms have to go to work, despite the state rail network only running a holiday service. Last year, the SNCF rail network prompted both ridicule and fury when it announced it would keep the Pentecost holiday in return for its staff working an extra 112 seconds a day.

As on public holidays, haulage trucks are not allowed to use the roads today, so companies cannot make deliveries. "How can one tell businesses to work and at the same time ban transport by ministerial decree?" asked Laurence Parisot, the head of the Medef [Le Mouvement des Entreprises de France] employers' federation.

FRENCH STAY HOME TO SNUB CHIRAC'S 'DAY OF SOLIDARITY'

PARIS June 6, 2006 (Telegraph) - The French government was humiliated yesterday as its attempts to make people give up a bank holiday and work for nothing in a "day of solidarity" for the elderly and handicapped backfired.

Unions, industry and even retirement home directors accused President Jacques Chirac's ministers of creating confusion and resentment: some people were asked to work without pay and others given the day off in a complex series of arrangements.

CALENDAR CONFUSION: FRANCE TAKES PENTECOST HALF-HOLIDAY

PARIS June 5, 2006 (AFP) - Half of France was at work while the other half relaxed on Monday, amid confusion over a government scheme to scrap a national holiday to create a healthcare fund for the aged. ... [T]he authorities backtracked this year following widespread protests, and reinstating the holiday for the public sector while allowing private companies to decide whether to work or not.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, on a visit to Finland, Monday defended the day of solidarity as a "revolution" although he admitted it was "not yet perfect."

"There is certainly room for improvement," he told reporters.

Some revolutionary improvement, we would think.

More on this over at E-Nough!:

LAZY NATION

As if to underline M Chirac’s declining power, his ministers have been unable to impose the reform on their own ministries, which are also stopping work.

Jean-Michel Thénard, a columnist for the newspaper Libération, said that France was slipping into a “surrealist world” governed by M Chirac’s “absurd poetry”.

The chaos is likely to inflict further damage on M Chirac, whose approval rating has plummeted to 17 per cent.

You think?

PFFT (What is this?): Solidarité 0 | Embrouillamini 4 | Rayonnement français 0

return for its staff working an extra 112 seconds a day.

Do they get any breaks during this time?