This has been bugging me, and although I do not particularly enjoy raising political questions, especially on an audio site, I was wondering if anybody who understands the issues involved can explain this. I don't want this to turn into a debate, I just want to understand what the fuss is about.

I've been hearing a lot about the CPE protests. I have no freaking clue what the protests are about. From what I've read in American media, the protesters are saying "don't give us crap jobs!" Except that, well, there aren't any jobs, and that is what the CPE is trying to fix.

Somebody please convince me that the protesters aren't as stupid as they seem. I looked up what Indymedia had to say, and it boiled down to, again, "don't give us crap jobs!" Utterly unhelpful.

As far as I have been able to understand the problem is that they have passed a new law that makes it possible for the employer to fire young people without warning or reason. The idea is that that would make the employer more likely to hire young people as he wouldn't have to fear them not being good at the job or something.
The prostesters in return argue that the law removes all job security for young people...

I follow the American media myself and read the same thing that Jan S. read in Europe. The protestors are upset that they can be fired without cause at any time in their first two years of employment. It is currently illegal in France to fire someone without cause. One would wish that would be universal but it is not. Many employers can fire employees for no reason at all.

Anyway, if you are watching Fox it is no surprise you are misinformed. Try some reputable news sources.

bbcnews.com is a pretty good source for this kind of information

Actually, I checked out BBC before I made this post. And I never read fox news. Heck, I don't even consider myself conservative.

Regardless, those arguments are not persuading me in the slightest, so I might as well drop the issue here.

This law is similar to another Italian law...

I try to explain the stuff I know about that, sry for the bad english, hoope u understand it

afaik it's up to the age of 26, 2 years as already mentioned
the law has been pushed through very quickly
the government wants to stick with the law but gave it's ok to some compromises because of the protests
the working organisations and the young people are not going to make compromises, they simply don't want that law
the government thinks that the employers are going to hire more young people when they are able to fire them easyly, the young people have another opinion

afaik germany is going to make a similar law, but not limited to young people

there are already a lot of ways to get rid of workers, in every country afaik...