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French Police Try to Contain Protesters in Paris; Interview with Martin Luther King III
Aired April 04, 2006 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Following the situation in Paris, France, let's go back to those live pictures. A fifth day of protests on the streets of Paris, hundreds of thousands on the streets, we're told. A fifth day of protests in opposition to the new labor law that gives employers in France a wide discretion in firing young workers under the age of 26.
Paula Hancocks is on the phone with us right now.
And, Paula, you were there with us last week when things got a little bit out of hand. And at the time of the introduction of the water tank, what can you tell us about the situation from your vantage point?
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Tony, up until about 45 minutes ago, this was a very peaceful demonstration. It was a carnival atmosphere, lots of music playing, people dancing. But then instantly, the mood changed somewhat. And it's an unusual situation at the moment. The protesters, or if you can call them protesters -- obviously there are certain parts or elements that just want to make trouble here -- is actually now turning on the media themselves.
You can probably see from the pictures that they're throwing bottles, they're throwing sticks, rocks, anything they can find, really, in the middle of this square, and throwing it at the media.
Now, the police are on standby. There's about 4,000 police on standby, we think, today, just in case this exact eventuality did happen. They're holding off at the moment. There have been a certain amount of tear gas in the air as they're trying to calm the situation down. But at the moment, it seems to be a standoff between these (INAUDIBLE), they're called, the more hardcore elements, not necessarily here for the right reasons and the media.
HARRIS: Paula, how do we explain today's dustup? As Jim Bittermann said just a moment ago, this seems to be a group that can't take yes for an answer. It seems to have won. The law is going to be changed.
HANCOCKS: A couple of people I was speaking to just a little earlier on, and I said, well, why are you here? Why is it important to be here now that the law has been softened somewhat? And some of them actually wanted the law completely canceled, and they thought that they could still do that. Power is in numbers. They were hoping to get a similar amount of people on the streets as they did last Tuesday, and they thought if that was possible, then Mr. Chirac, the president, and Prime Minister Dajota (ph) would have to back down completely. So there's an element of people who think if they continue with this, then the politicians won't be able to ignore the masses on the streets.
HARRIS; Paula, if this plays out the way it did last week, we've got about, oh, I don't know, maybe another hour of this, and then as I recall, police will move actually in and actually physically start to clear this. Does that sound about the right timeframe?
HANCOCKS: Well, the plans for the police themselves, no, it's in about half an hour's time, they'll want to actually clear this particular square. They're going to close all shops, and a lot of the shops have boarded up their windows, obviously worried there was going to be smashed windows. I'm standing next to a McDonald's and KFC, and as you can imagine, both of have their doors and windows boarded up. So I'd say in about a half hour, the police will start to move in, try and clear this crowd, and that could be when it could become more volatile.
HARRIS: And I'm sure you'll keep an eye on it for us. We appreciate it. CNN's Paula Hancocks for us following the demonstrations, the protests ongoing, five straight days now in Paris.
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HARRIS: A day to remember. Can it possibly be 38 years since Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down on a motel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee? City, county and state workers gathered a short time ago in that city to rally in memory. Leading the way, the Reverend Dwight Montgomery, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. It's just one of a tributes today to the civil rights leader whose non-violent message transformed a nation.
When King was assassinated, his oldest son was just 10 years old. Martin Luther King III now heads the King Center here in Atlanta.
Martin, good to see you.
MARTIN LUTHER KING III, PRES./CEO OF KING CENTER: Good to see you. Thank you.
HARRIS: I want to start this way. I lost my dad over a decade ago, and I am still amazed by the way it impacts my life. You were 10 years old at the time. I wonder if it's the same for you. Are you amazed, surprised, by the different ways the loss of your father has impacted you?
KING: I don't think I'm -- maybe I'm surprised because, quite frankly, because we observe anniversaries, it's almost like he's not really gone.
HARRIS: Really?
KING: That's how I choose to look at it. Now, this year is different because, of course, this is the first anniversary that we will have observed without my mom. And I certainly want to thank the nation, this community of Atlanta and Georgia, for all the prayers and support that we received during her homegoing.
HARRIS: Well, we're going to talk about that in a little more detail in just a moment. Before his death in April of 1998, James Earl Ray -- I'm curious, do you think he took any confessions, any confessions to the grave with him, any secrets?
KING: Well, you know, you never know. But what we did find out, through an extensive investigation, was that James Earl Ray was essentially a patsy. We never really held him responsible other than the small role that he played. We knew that there was a larger effort going on, and we were able to find that out.
So for us, it represented closure. Once we went through the investigation, a trial took place. Over 70 witnesses were brought in, and we found out that he just was not the person that they thought he was.
HARRIS: Now when you say that, what do you -- do you hold him personally responsible? Do you think he fired the fatal shot?
KING: No, no.
HARRIS: You don't?
KING: We feel very...
HARRIS: The family doesn't...
KING: No, no.
HARRIS: So explain the theory that resonates as the most truthful in your mind and members of your family.
KING: The theory that we believe is that a Memphis produce owner who worked in conjunction with the mob at that time hired a marksman, who actually was an off-duty police officer, to actually physically do the assassination. James Earl Ray was just a patsy who drove around from place to place. There were two mustangs. There are a lot of issues that unfortunately the masses don't know. But that's -- today that's not what we are here to talk about, how we continue this tremendous legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.
HARRIS: Just to take you back just for a little bit longer, we're going to show you some pictures of you as a 10-year-old. And on that day, your father's funeral. Do you have occasions on days like this -- now take a look at this picture and -- what are your thoughts on a day like today?
KING: Probably the most prominent thought is, as an adult, not having the opportunity to have spoken with my father. When we were there watching, it was -- we can't interface with him. We can't hug and kiss him like he was so affectionate with us. So the pain of the loss -- obviously, there appears that we're just viewing his remains. But all of that was going through my mind. Is this real? What we are seeing? Is it real? Is this really happening?
HARRIS: How about this one? Look at this picture here. Do you remember this?
KING: Vaguely. That was, of course, marching, the funeral procession, probably going to Morehouse College.
HARRIS: To have lost your mom so recently.
KING: You know, grieving -- it's interesting, as a child, we seem to have gotten past our fathers. But that 38 years ago is quite a bit of time. But for our mom, it's so fresh that every week there's grieving. In fact, when I pass by the center, oftentimes it's a little -- I get tear-eyed when I see the trumprimps (ph). And I often -- I just turn my head and don't always look. At some point, I will be able to.
HARRIS: Martin, that funeral, I was there, I was covering it for CNN. And that's one of the events of my life. I have to ask you about two moments. And the first moment is the thunderous ovation that I heard that resonated through New Birth Missionary Baptist Church when you and your siblings walked down the aisle into the main sanctuary to your seat. Do you remember that moment?
KING: Sort of. I actually was not focused on that moment and what was happening. I think, in my mind, I was dreading what we were going to have to go through. It was actually -- I did acknowledge the applause that the president and presidents -- particularly President Clinton received, and Senator Hillary Clinton.
HARRIS: Well, talk about that moment for a second. Because I've tried to explain to friends what a moment that was for your mother to have lived the kind of life that, upon her death, four living presidents are there to say good-bye. Talk to us about the significance of that moment, because maybe you can help me explain it better to some of my friends who have asked about it.
KING: I don't know -- I mean, after having an opportunity to evaluate, I mean, what can you say except for the life that mother lived, was able to bring four presidents to her homegoing service? And President Ford said that he would have come...
HARRIS: Would have been there, sure.
KING: ... had he not been ill.
HARRIS: Right.
KING: So that is incredible. I don't know if we'll see something like that in a short period of time from now.
HARRIS: I have to ask you, the King Center, a lot of controversy swirling around the center right now. My question is real straightforward, basic one to you. Will the King Center that you run now, will it remain in the hands and in the control of the King family? KING: That -- we're still discussing that issue. I would have to say that whether the center is one day sold to the government or whether the center stays in the family's hands, we're going to continue to work and build on the legacy of my mother and father.
HARRIS: Martin, good to see you. Good to see you. Thank you for being here.
KING: Thank you for the opportunity.
HARRIS: Yes, we really appreciate it. Thank you so much.
When we come back, young workers protesting in 150 French cities. And things, we understand, are starting to heat up. The news keeps coming. We'll keep bringing it you. We will take you back to Paris in just a moment. You're watching LIVE FROM on CNN.
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HARRIS: Once again, let's take you back to Paris now, and as I mentioned just a moment ago, the situation on the ground there clearly is starting to heat up. But police are trying now, as Paula Hancocks mentioned just a few moments ago, to bring this particular demonstration on the site that you're looking at right now to a close.
But things are beginning to spiral just a bit out of control. We're talking about a fifth day of protests on the streets of Paris right now. estimates of hundreds of thousands of people on the streets. A smaller group in this particular area that you're looking at now, but a group that clearly has elements within it that are bent on causing some havoc right now.
We have seen vans with cages -- maybe you'll see them in the lower part of your screen there on the right -- we have seen vans with cages that at various points have moved in to try to move these people along. We have also seen the police in riot gear firing tear gas into the crowd.
In response, we've seen members of this group that is demonstrating, that is protesting, throwing anything that they can find at the police in full riot gear. You just saw something fly through the screen just a moment ago. We're talking about chunks of concrete, bottles, whatever.
CNN's Paula Hancocks is following the situation for us. And, Paula, just over the last couple of minutes, things have certainly intensified.
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on phone): Well, that's right. Yes, there were a few skirmishes a little bit earlier on, about an hour ago but, unfortunately, it does appear to be becoming much more volatile as we're standing here in the square.
There's been a lot of protesters, or at least the hard-core element, not necessarily protesting for the right cause here, just out for a scuffle with the police. They've been throwing bottles, they've been throwing anything they can put their hands on, really. Parts of the fence, road signs, many of them throwing them actually at media.
But now the police have started to move into place. They wanted to clear this square out within the next five to 10 minutes. But I'm not sure they'll be able to do that, but they're certainly starting to move in to try and contain some of these protesters, the more hard- core elements.
A lot of tear gas has been put out into the square, and some pepper gas -- pepper spray as well which is actually from the protesters themselves. So some tear gas against pepper spray at the moment.
HARRIS: Yes, Paula, I have to ask you, was it pretty much common knowledge among the demonstrators, the protesters today that at a certain time, this was going to come to a close and that now we're approaching that time and we're starting to see more of this kind of activity?
HANCOCKS: Yes. That's no surprise to any of the protesters here. This is exactly what's been happening the past few as well. This is the fifth day of nationwide action that the protesters against this employment law have actually carried out.
And last Tuesday, at this particular time as well, we had the police starting to move in using tear gas and water cannons to control people and contain them and try to send them home. It's no surprise to the people that are still here. The people that are still in the middle are those that are not necessarily wanting to go home peacefully.
HARRIS: Hey, Paula, is this the same location -- and maybe you can tell us, orient us to exactly where you are at this plaza, the square where you're talking to us from -- but is this the same area we saw the massive demonstration last week?
HANCOCKS: It's actually not. This march today was the exact opposite of what they did last week. So they started off at the square that you saw the trouble last week. And now they've ended up at the square that they started from.
And I'm just behind some police cars at the moment. They have big barricades up, and they're trying to drive these barricades towards the protesters, trying to contain them, trying to make sure that they stay behind the lines of the riot police.
HARRIS: Paula, I've got to tell you, if you -- as we sort of survey the area, we're seeing some scenes where this thing looks like an absolutely carnival. We've got a woman twirling fire on a string or rope or something.
There is an element of this that we probably need to remind ourselves where at the beginning of the day, this felt a bit like a celebration, that the unions and the students had essentially won, the law was going to be changed.
HANCOCKS: Well, just about two hours ago -- about 2:00 p.m. local -- it was a real carnival feeling down here. I was around the square. We were wandering around. There were people singing, people playing music and people laughing.
This really did change very suddenly. I think some of more peaceful protesters decide to go home that the mood changed very suddenly. And the people that are left here are not necessarily here for the right reasons. They're not necessarily here to fight against the employment law. A lot of the people here will just be here to fight against the police and to cause trouble.
HARRIS: And, Paula, I don't know if you can help us strategically sort of explain what is going on here. It looks like the police in riot gear are sort of moving incrementally, slowly and incrementally, to sort of bust up this crowd. Is that what you're seeing from your vantage point?
HANCOCKS: Yes. This is a tactic that they've used in the past couple of protests. They try and break up the big groups of protesters and cordon them off so that they can make sure that those peaceful protesters can get out of the way and can actually stand behind the police and go on their way and get home.
And the more -- obviously, the more hard-core element is going to stay within those groups. So they're really just trying to portion them off and make sure that there's not just a big group that can cause a lot of trouble. But if they contain them into smaller groups, than it's a lot easier to go in and make the arrests they need to make, or at least they're trying to persuade them somehow to leave.
HARRIS: OK, CNN's Paula Hancocks with us. Paula, thank you.
Coming up on 2:00 Eastern time -- and we're watching these live pictures out of Paris right now as, again, the situation beginning to heat up as police have determined that now is the time to bring this demonstration, this protest, to a close.
And police are sort of moving in incrementally to bust up the larger group of demonstrators into smaller, more manageable groups. "Newsweek" magazine's Paris bureau chief, Chris Dickey, is on the line with us.
Chris, good to talk to you. Chris, are you there?
CHRISTOPHER DICKEY, "NEWSWEEK" PARIS BUREAU CHIEF: My pleasure.
HARRIS: Oh, great. Great. We've got you up in front of a camera. Great.
DICKEY: Yes, I'm here.
HARRIS: OK, Chris, good to see you. I'm Tony Harris in Atlanta with you. I have to ask you for your take on all of this. As we've been mentioning over the course of the last hour, and Jim Bittermann put his finger right on it. We're sort of wondering what this particular protest is all about. Seemingly the students and the unions have won some concessions from the government. DICKEY: Well, there's two different things going on here. One was that the students and the unions wanted to drive home their victory and to get more than a compromise. They wanted to get the law completely repealed, completely removed, that was signed into effect on the 2nd, this youth unemployment law that I'm sure you've talked about a lot today.
But then there's this whole parallel thing that groups of gangs that hang out on the edges of these demonstrations really are like packs of wolves, looking to pick people off, to make trouble, to have confrontations with the police. And when the demonstration ends -- and there was hundreds of thousands of people in this demonstration today, but that demonstration has essentially ended.
And what's left are these packs of wolves, if you will, and those are the people who are being cleared out right now, also circus performers and a few other flakes who are on the fringes of this, but basically the demonstration is over.
HARRIS: Well, Chris, let's talk about the folks who were there earlier to sort of drive home that victory. Now, you're telling us that perhaps what they want as ultimate victory is to have this law repealed. What are the chances of that happening?
DICKEY: Well, if things keep going like this, I'd say the chances are going to be fairly good. Already the government is saying it wants to sit down and talk with the unions. It wants to talk with the students. Essentially what it's saying is it wants to compromise and compromise and compromise.
Whether they will say, OK, we're going to sign the paper repealing this law, or whether they will just continue to dilute the law out of existence maybe is a moot point.
Already, President Chirac last Friday basically cut the effect of the law in half and also pretty much cut the legs out from under his prime minister, Dominique de Villepin. So I think we're going to see this political process continue, but the reform process is just about dead.
HARRIS: And in doing so, did he essentially throw his -- pardon the expression, but did he throw his prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, under the bus politically?
DICKEY: Pretty much. Villepin was taking a huge gamble. He was basically saying, look, we've got this tough law, I know it's going to be unpopular, but he expected it would be kind of a Thatcher moment or a Reagan moment where he was going to go head to head against the left and against the unions, he was going to win out, hang tough. And a year from now, when he expects to be running for president, unemployment would have gone down because the law is a good law and it would be effective.
Well, now the law is not a good law. Now the law's not going to be effective. Nobody will every know if that's going to work out. He's really in an untenable position, and his biggest rival is the interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, and those are his guys out there cleaning up the street right now and getting the credit for it.
HARRIS: What's happening? Can you -- have you been able to sort of gauge public support for what these unions and students are doing? My understanding is that some recent polling suggests that support for this kind of activity is starting to slip.
DICKEY: I think support for the protests is widespread, but it is probably slipping a little bit. People don't like this violence. They don't like to see these demonstrations end up the way they have been ending up.
A lot of demonstrators don't like it either and have tried to avoid attracting this kind of element. But it seems to be inevitable that some of these kids and groups will come in and try and take advantage of the situation.
At the same time, you have to know that the law that they're protesting against, that the majority of protesters oppose, is really not a popular law with the French. The French would like to stop the world and get off in globalization and have job security for life. They don't want their politicians telling them that's not possible. And that's what Villepin is trying to do.
HARRIS: OK. "Newsweek's" Paris bureau chief Chris Dickey with us.
Chris, I have to ask you, if you wouldn't mind, before I let you go, take a look behind you there. And it looks like at least at your location things are starting to clear out.
DICKEY: Yes. We had -- we had a couple of stampedes just before I went on. You probably got them with other cameras, where people were being driven by these trucks and fences and by police lines steadily out of the square and being chased down a couple of the major avenues.
So, pretty much, the square is cleared out now. And I think -- I don't think we'll see a whole lot more. Maybe over in just one corner, just a few isolated incidents.
HARRIS: OK, Chris. We appreciate it. Thank you.
And let's take those live pictures full now. As Chris just mentioned, this protest, today's protest seems to be winding down. Police -- as we see a rush going on right now -- and this is strategically what we saw last week and again. Let's listen in here.
Look at that right there in the center of the screen, someone being dragged off.
This is pretty much playing out as we described it just a short time ago. Now, that's -- that's not good look.
What's happening is that the police are moving in and breaking up the larger groups into smaller, more manageable groups. And then clearly what they can do is they can -- they can pick off at that time the real troublemakers, and so far it seems to be pretty effective.
It is the same strategy that we saw employed by the police just last week when there was a massive demonstration. When you factor in all the people who are out on Paris streets and France streets countrywide, somewhere in the neighborhood of a million, some estimates running as high as three million.
Once again, this seems to be sort of the culmination of a fifth day of protests on the streets of Paris right now.
CNN's Jim Bittermann is watching the situation on the ground right now.
And Jim, I sort of described it as the police sort of moving in strategically to bust up large groups and then create smaller groups where they could then pick off some of the troublemakers. Is that fairly accurate?
JIM BITTERMANN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Pretty much so, Tony. I think that's exactly what's been happening. And I was -- I was listening to you talk about strategies. The fact is that one of the very small advantages to all these demonstrations is that the police have developed some strategies for dealing with protests and with the kind of troublemaking that we see going on here.
They had herded -- basically herded people into one area of the square and then down the street, a rather broad avenue. At the same time, a police helicopter appeared on the scene, and I suspect that the reasoning behind that is to keep track of the groups as they went down this rather large avenue and make sure that they didn't cause further trouble further on down into the city.
But basically, they have now pretty much cleared the center of the square. And, in fact, at a moment when they were supposed to end this demonstration, there are still occasional charges here as you can see right now...
HARRIS: Yes. Yes.
BITTERMANN: ... that take place with the police charging into the crowd and many times pulling people out.
One thing I should say, as you see these people with the red arm bands, they are actually civilian -- police in civilian clothes who are the ones wearing those red arm bands. And so those are police as well that are taking part in these arrests. There have been at least 200 arrests during the course of this march today, and I suspect quite a few more just in the last half-hour to 45 minutes here.
HARRIS: Hey, Jim, "Newsweek" magazine's Chris Dickey just a moment ago suggested to us that the people who were there to legitimately protest, to celebrate the carnival atmosphere that's been described, that those people, for the most part, have left the scene and have turned this thing over to what he described as gangs, kind of packs of wolves who are causing the real problems here. BITTERMANN: I think that's right. I think you'd probably find three groups of people right now, the people -- the serious protest who by this time are probably going home and thinking about where they are going to have dinner...
HARRIS: Yes.
BITTERMANN: ... and the demonstrators that took part in the massive parade today. Then there's a number of people here who are hanging around this square waiting to see what's going to happen. And then there are the people who think they can make it happen, and those are the troublemakers you see throwing things at the police and, in fact, getting themselves arrested as the evening wears on here.
HARRIS: Hey, Jim, once again, because we've got a great shot of these people with these armbands on, tell us who they are again.
BITTERMANN: Those are police in civilian clothes. I mean, in all of these demonstrations, you'll find that the police have pretty well infiltrated the demonstrations. They don't put those arm bands on, though. They just walk along with the demonstrators and you really can't tell them from any of the other demonstrators.
But when things start happening, then they put those arm bands on so their colleagues don't -- don't pick on them and they can be identified clearly as police. So these are -- the ones with the red arm bands, those are police in civilian clothes.
HARRIS: And was it pretty well known that police was going to move in at a set time, that -- at a predetermined time, this particular protest and other protests around the city were going to come to an end one way or another?
BITTERMANN: Well, the police always, when they grant a demonstration permit for this kind of a protest demonstration , basically put an end time to it. Last week it was 8:00. This week it was 8:00 local time.
It's actually just -- when they moved in, it was about 15 minutes before 8:00 local time. So it was pretty close to the time they said they were going to end this demonstration one way or another when they moved in and cleared the square out. The square now pretty much cleared of any people, but you have to and yourself where they've all gone.
They're probably in smaller groups, it's true, but maybe in different parts of the city causing trouble. Although the fact that the police have stayed here and not gone rushing off indicates to me, perhaps, that some of these groups have disbursed now.
One of the things, too, that's happened is that the interior minister, who is the boss of the police you see out there making the arrests and whatnot, he has scheduled himself to come by here to talk to the police and sort of show solidarity with them a little later on, about an hour and a half from now. So I think they'll want to make sure that everything is locked down tight by the time the interior minister gets here.
HARRIS: CNN's Jim Bittermann.
Jim, thank you.
Let's go back to Chris Dickey, "Newsweek" magazine's Paris bureau chief. He's on the line with us right now.
And Chris, I have to ask you, we've been watching this unfold now over -- what is it now? I wants to say the last couple of weeks. But I'm thinking it's more like the last month or two.
DICKEY: Yes, it's the better part of a month, yes.
HARRIS: Is it the better part of a month?
DICKEY: Yes.
HARRIS: Well, let me and you something. What is it like for Parisians, for people who make France their home to see -- I mean, look, in November there were -- there were the riots, and now another situation here with a lot of civil unrest.
What is going on in French society right now?
DICKEY: Well, I think that people feel the stagnation that exists in this society right now and they know about the unemployment. But I don't think that the daily life of most Parisians is really greatly affected.
You have to know that there was a general strike called for today that was essentially ineffective. You could go on the metro, you could go on buses. Planes were perhaps delayed a little bit. But the country is not shut down, far from it.
I think we always have to be careful when we're watching television images to realize you're only seeing as much as you have on the edges of the frame. And what's going on in the rest of the city right now is that things are perfectly calm. People are going to dinner, they're going to movies. There's no sense of violence or danger at all.
We are in the far south of the city, in a corner that's on the edge of a lot of working class and immigrant neighborhoods not far from the university. But we are very far from the Champs-Elysees or places that most tourists would normally go. So I think that you have to keep that in mind.
This is a problem. It's a political crisis for the government. But this is not a revolution or anything nearly that serious in France right now.
HARRIS: OK. Chris, I'm going to have you stand by, if you wouldn't mind, please, because on the other side of the break I'd like to ask you, sure, this is happening on the fringes in some of the neighborhoods that you've described, but certainly the people who call France home are looking at this situation from the relative comforts of their homes and wondering, what about the broader implications, are there broader implications of what's going on here?
We'll take a break and we'll come back with Chris Dickey. He is the Paris bureau chief for "Newsweek" magazine.
You're watching "LIVE FROM."
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HARRIS: And once again, live pictures -- if you're just joining us, live pictures from Paris, France, where police in full riot gear, as you can see, are seemingly getting the upper hand on this demonstration today, a fifth day of protests. Hundreds of thousands in the streets.
We hear some chanting. Let's see if we can listen in and hear exactly what's going on. It might be in French and we may not be able to understand it, but let's listen anyway.
All right. OK. All right.
A lot of noise. Seeing some things being thrown at various times, chunks of concrete, bottles, rocks. The police responding with tear gas. A couple of times we saw vans with cages on the front of the vans moving people out of the way.
Once again, Chris Dickey, Paris bureau chief of "Newsweek" magazine, is on the line with us.
And before the break, Chris, I was asking the question, you know, if you're sitting anywhere in France right now and you're taking a look at this situation, let's say you're in one of the more upscale neighborhoods of Paris, and you see what's happening in some of these poorer areas, and you see this kind of disturbance playing out on your television set, it seems to me that one of the things you have to ask yourself is, A, do the politicians have a handle on this, and, B, how long before what is happening here starts to impact my life, my livelihood here?
DICKEY: Well, I think that there -- this is a divided society, and I think that the people who are in the (INAUDIBLE), the well-to-do neighborhoods this city and of France, are looking at this and it's confirming a lot of the prejudices they already have. It's saying, look, these -- a lot of these kids who are causing trouble, a lot of these people you see rioting, they're clearly from background -- immigrant backgrounds, African and Arab.
This -- this exacerbates prejudices that already exist. And that's bad.
Also, a lot of people who believe that what's needed in this country is to liberalize the economy, that is to say, open it up, make it easier to hire and fire people, drop tariff barriers, reduce taxes -- and a lot of those people are wealthier people -- they look at this and they say this is a disaster, this government is going to be frozen. Even though it's a right wing Gaullist government, it doesn't have the stuff to stand up against these kinds of protests.
So I think all those kinds of concerns are being felt in those kinds of neighborhoods.
Among poorer people, I think there's a feeling of great, great insecurity. And that's why you saw the unions out here demonstrating.
There's a feeling that the world is more and more competitive, more and more of a difficult place to live. That France has been a good people to -- a good place for people who may not have had a lot of money in the past, but it's going to become more and more ferociously competitive, not only internally, but externally. And a lot of people really don't want to see that happen.
That's what you see them marching against. That's what the -- what the posters and the banners are essentially talking about.
They say we don't want what they would call precariousness. And, in fact, they don't want fear as the motivating factor in their economic and social lives. And that's what they think does drive American life and life in China and other more competitive environments.
Unfortunately, there's sort of no way around it. They don't have an alternative to that. So they go out and protest and hope for the best. They stop new laws from happening, but they don't come up with new laws that work.
HARRIS: Chris, maybe the follow-up is, who is the intermediary? Is it going to be -- between the haves and the have nots, who's the mediator, the go-between? Is it the interior minister? Is it someone from the government at all? Who -- is it someone from union?
DICKEY: Well, you know, it's interesting. When Chirac was first elected president way back in 1995 for his first term, he ran on a platform saying that he was going to close the social divide, because even then people were aware this was a terrible problem. But he hasn't succeeded in doing that, as the riots last November in all the ghettos on the outer edges of the cities all over France made absolutely clear.
This is another moment when that social divide is becoming very apparent. And right now, we don't have anybody who is really clearly able to heal that rift.
The left is moving more to the left. Even the centrists are trying to stake out what you or I would consider radical leftist positions. And meanwhile, the right is in more and more of a get tough law and order mood.
Villepin was trying to compromise. He thought that his law would work, but his law has essentially been gutted and will soon be defeated. And that leaves the door open for a law and order candidate like Sarkozy, who is making -- the interior minister whose police are clearing out the square in front of me right now. This will all be to Sarkozy's benefit. HARRIS: Yes. CNN -- I'm sorry. "Newsweek" magazine's Paris bureau chief -- I made you an employee -- Chris Dickey for us.
Chris, we appreciate it. Thank you.
Now let's get to CNN's Paula Hancocks, who is watching developments as they unfold.
And Paula, if you could just sort of give us an assessment of where things stand now. At least at the moment things appear to be fairly calm.
HANCOCKS: Well, that's right, Tony. And that's what it feels like down here as well. The mood has changed somewhat again.
They do appear to be -- the police appear to be moving a fast (ph) few of these protesters out at one end of this square, as I'm sure you can see. A lot of the protesters are just walking down one of the roads and leaving.
Also, in another corner of the square, there were a couple of protesters still playing music and staging a sit-down protest. So, at the moment, it does appear to be a little calmer. There's a little bit of people just standing around and watching the protesters. They look bemused and just watching these particular pockets. But it does seem to have calmed down.
HARRIS: Yes. Hey, Paula, let me ask you question we were just talking about with Chris Dickey from "Newsweek" magazine. Is this in your mind a kind of a pivotal moment dating back to November and the violent demonstrations, and, in fact, some of the rioting that we saw -- and flash forward to where we are right now -- is this kind of a pivotal moment between haves and have-nots and folks in Paris and greater France trying to determine what their society is going to look like moving forward?
HANCOCKS: Well, to be honest, there are definitely -- there's definitely an element here that you would have seen in those riots at end of last year. But the majority of the protesters here, they just want to make sure that they have what their parents and their grandparents have. In that respect, that's unrealistic. They're not going to be having that.
But the people that we're seeing protesting violently are really not those that have been protesting against this CPE, first job contract. At least not for the most part.
We've seen last week and we saw a little earlier on as well, a week last Saturday, we saw some of these harder-core elements actually attacking protesters themselves, mugging protesters. So there's definitely not just an element of fighting against the system, of fighting against the government. Some of these more hard-core elements are just fighting against each other.
HARRIS: CNN's Paula Hancocks following the situation, this developing story in Paris. Paula, we appreciate it. Thank you.
Once again, let's sort of reset where we are right now.
For the last hour or so we have been watching a demonstration, a fifth day of protests and demonstration in Paris. And we've been watching it from our vantage point, but we understand there have been other protests throughout the city of Paris. As many as -- well, it's been described to us as hundreds of thousands of people in the streets again, ostensibly in opposition to the new law that allows great leeway, great latitude for employers to fire young employees under the age of 26 inside the first two years of employment.
The government sees this as a way to make the job market more competitive as a jobs program for young people to get more people into the workforce. Students and the labor unions have been in opposition of the law.
The French president, last week, late last week, in a national address, signed -- agreed to sign the bill -- that's nice -- agreed to sign the bill into law, but asked that it be changed. And as a result, at the beginning of this day what turned out initially to be a celebration of what has to go down as a victory for the unions and the students has taken a rather ugly turn. Not as ugly as it could have become, but certainly an ugly turn as police in full riot gear have decided that they've had enough and have moved into this particular plaza to move these protesters along, breaking up the large group into smaller groups, and at various times sort of plucking people, the troublemakers, from those smaller groups and arresting them.
We will continue to follow developments in Paris. But right now we'll take a quick break.
You're watching "LIVE FROM" on CNN.
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HARRIS: Again, watching protests in Paris right now. Another one of these skirmishes that we see break out from time to time.
And let's go back to "Newsweek" magazine's Paris bureau chief, Chris Dickey, who is on the line with us.
And Chris, maybe it's an appropriate time as we see, you know, police moving and breaking the large group into smaller groups and then trying to arrest these troublemakers here, maybe it's a good time for us to review this CPE, this contract for first employment. What a lot of people are suggesting is that the students and these unions are responding to their fear that what this law will create is a kind of U.S.-style job insecurity.
DICKEY: That's exactly what they're afraid of. They talk about junk jobs. They say, you know, look, we don't -- if what we're talking about with employment is basically dishing up fries and burgers, then that's not what we want. We want real jobs with a real future. Well, of course, they do. But the problem is, this economy is not able to deliver those kinds of jobs to young people. And were still -- for the kinds of kids who live out in the fringe ghettos, or the edges of the city where unemployment is 40 percent, nobody is going to give them a job even dishing out burgers, especially if they think that they won't be able to fire them after six months or after a year.
It's basically a law that was supposed to be created so that young people could prove themselves to their employers. But the psychology of France on this question is such that this is just seen as some kind of exploitative maneuver by the great money interests to exploit the young.
I know it sounds crazy if you're an American listening to this, but that really is the mindset that exists here. And it's a very popular mindset.
It's not only with ghetto kids, it's certainly not with a lot of the young cuffs (ph) on the fringes of this crowd. They're not going to be getting many jobs of a normal nature anyway. But it is what the mass of protesters here really do believe. And for the whole country to change the way it thinks or the way half of it thinks is a major undertaking for any government.
HARRIS: Hey, Chris, I have to ask you, is the prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, is he -- is he in some respect wondering what the heck is going on? Because I've heard this -- this new law described as being a minor change.
DICKEY: Well, yes, it is a change. The original one that would have stretched the period, the trial period, essentially, for the employment of young people from -- it varies from six months to two years -- would have been -- would have been not a huge revolutionary change. But you have to understand how resistant the left wing is here and a lot of the right wing is here to any sort of change of that nature. And they saw this as a kind of a foot in the door, a wedge that would open up the economy to more and more liberal labor laws, making it easier and easier to fire people.
The subtext here is for a lot of these people in the crowd, the older people, is that first you have a youth employment law, and then you stretch that law to start affecting older people too, and the next thing you know, employers can fire you on two-week notice and not give cause. That's what they're afraid of here.
HARRIS: Chris, I think you did us a great service a while ago when you gave us the context that what we're watching is one situation in one kind of isolated area in comparison to all of Paris and all of France.
Talk to us about that again, that this is a snapshot, obviously, that's you're working on your television screens right now. In other parts of the country life goes on, as it has gone on.
DICKEY: In other parts of the country and in other parts of the city. Paris is a big town. Imagine if there was a riot down in The Battery. Would the people on Park Avenue or the Upper West Side or Midtown in New York know that was happening unless they watched it on their television screen? No, they wouldn't. This is essentially the same situation.
HARRIS: OK. Once again, our thanks. I hired you just a second ago, Chris.
DICKEY: Always a pleasure.
HARRIS: Maybe we ought to. "Newsweek" Paris Bureau Chief Chris Dickey with us. We appreciate it. Thank you. Once again, a live picture as nighttime begins to descend on Paris, France. A lot darker if you're there on the ground than we're making it look on the screen right now. The technology helps us to illuminate the scene for you right there.
As you see now, the demonstrations are starting to wind down. Still a lot of police on the scene. Obviously, we'll continue to follow this developing story in Paris. Right now we're going to take a break. More LIVE FROM when we come back.
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