Something about the iPod-iTunes relationship ruffled the feathers of economic policymakers in France. Most of the music on my iPod wasn’t bought through iTunes, and I’ve certainly used ephPod and other utilities to get songs off/on my iPod. From what I understand, they want people to be able to use iTunes with devices other than the iPod. That, to me, sounds like a slippery slope whereby any company who makes software to support their hardware would have to make sure their software works with other people’s hardware too. I’m not sure where France draws the line.
“I don’t want the crap,” [France Trade Minister Christine] Lagarde said. “It annoys me when France is portrayed as an awkward, backward country. It is not.”
Yes, it is.
While reform is needed in the labor market, French commerce is on firm footing and the economy strong, Lagarde said.
Riiight… I’m sure the labor market problems are totally unrelated to the economy. The anti-corporation attitude and 9% unemployment rate probably have nothing to do with each other and are purely coincidental. Keep up the fine work.
I also think taking iPods away from the country’s youth (who’s unemployment rate is above 20% and are already rioting) would be great for France too. How could anyone think of this behavior as “backwards”?
I was curious how France stacked up against other countries in terms of unemployment. Turns out that the EU average is 8.9% — so I guess France doesn’t feel too bad about their rate.
Comment by f — April 14, 2006 @ 12:05 pm
If you compare France to the rest of the EU, all of which now share the same currency and seem to have similar attitudes, France doesn’t particularly stick out. But there would be outrage in the US if our rate were that high. Bush took a lot of crap in the last election when unemployment was as around 5.5%.
Comment by Tom — April 15, 2006 @ 10:00 am
Yup — it’s always astounding to hear about unemployment in some countries (one of my co-workers is from Poland, which regularly has unemployment in the high teens)
Comment by f — April 16, 2006 @ 1:30 pm
Just saw this and it was kind of interesting:
http://www.songbirdnest.com/nivi/blog/jobs_france
Comment by Tom — April 19, 2006 @ 8:02 am