The politics of temporary work deregulation in Europe: solving the French puzzle

Temporary work has expanded in the last three decades with adverse implications for inequalities. Because temporary workers are a constituency that is unlikely to impose political costs, governments often choose to reduce temporary work regulations. While most European countries have indeed implemented such reforms, France went in the opposite direction, despite having both rigid labour markets and high unemployment. My argument to solve this puzzle is that where replaceability is high, workers in permanent and temporary contracts have overlapping interests, and governments choose to regulate temporary work to protect permanent workers. In turn, replaceability is higher where permanent workers’ skills are general and wage coordination is low. Logistic regression analysis of the determinants of replaceability — and how this affects governments’ reforms of temporary work regulations — supports my argument. Process tracing of French reforms also confirm that the left has tightened temporary work regulations to compensate for the high replaceability.

La monarquia francesa y los financieros en el Antiguo Régimen. El ejemplo de los traitants durante la Guerra de los Nueve Años, 1689-1697 = The French Monarchy and the financiers during the Old Regime. The case of the traitants during the Nine Years War, 1689-1697

This article explores the relationship between the Crown, the French society and the king's financiers. It starts with a brief review of the discourses on the financiers and a survey of the work done by historians. Further to a description of the various groups of financiers, it analyses the nature of the contracts passed between the king and the traitants to pay for the Nine Years War, as well as the latter’s activities and profits. The article argues that the government supervised effectively the traitants and that, given the constraints of the Old Regime, these financiers provided essential services, but too costly to be sustainable.

A comparative study of the characteristics of French Fries produced by deep fat frying and air frying

Air frying is being projected as an alternative to deep fat frying for producing snacks such as French Fries. In air frying, the raw potato sections are essentially heated in hot air containing fine oil droplets, which dehydrates the potato and attempts to impart the characteristics of traditionally produced French fries, but with a substantially lower level of fat absorbed in the product. The aim of this research is to compare: 1) the process dynamics of air frying with conventional deep fat frying under otherwise similar operating conditions, and 2) the products formed by the two processes in terms of color, texture, microstructure, calorimetric properties and sensory characteristics Although, air frying produced products with a substantially lower fat content but with similar moisture contents and color characteristics, it required much longer processing times, typically 21 minutes in relation to 9 minutes in the case of deep fat frying. The slower evolution of temperature also resulted in lower rates of moisture loss and color development reactions. DSC studies revealed that the extent of starch gelatinization was also lower in the case of air fried product. In addition, the two types of frying also resulted in products having significantly different texture and sensory characteristics.

Selection, exclusion and assimilation: the project lambert of 1931 on the reform of French immigration policy

The unemployment crisis of 1926-7 focused attention onto the question of immigration. Historians of this period have generally focused on the crisis of public policy and popular antipathies towards foreigners; more recently historians have become attuned to voices of racism. Less attention has been paid to attempts to redress the policy weaknesses through a new legislative regime on immigration. This paper reviews one such proposal, made by Charles Lambert, a deputy from the Rhone, in 1931. Instrumental in a revision of the naturalization law in 1927 to encourage the assimilation of foreigners through the acquisition of French citizenship, Lambert proposed a comprehensive statute on immigration to select “desirable” foreigners and exclude the “undesirables” to promote the assimilation of the “better” elements. The paper argues that his rationale betrays a profound fear of mounting French weakness in the face of economic and demographic decline, and grave anxieties for the future health of the French nation.

Exchange rate exposure, foreign currency derivatives and the introduction of the euro: French evidence

We investigate the impact of the introduction of the Euro on exchange rate exposures for French corporations and examine the corporate use of foreign currency derivatives to hedge exchange rate exposure post-Euro. Our findings indicate that the introduction of the Euro is associated with both a reduction in the number of firms that have significant exchange rate exposure and the absolute size of exposure. Consistent with these reduced exposures, French firms use foreign currency derivatives less intensively. Furthermore, the use of foreign currency derivatives is found to be associated with lower exchange rate exposure but there is insufficient evidence that these instruments are more effective in the post-Euro environment.

Envisioning Indochina : the spatial and social ordering and imagining of a French colony

The emergence of Indochina in the French imagination was articulated in both representational and institutional modes. Representation involves the transmission of colonial ideals through more obtuse means; that is, through literary texts, travelogues, exhibitions, film and advertising. However, these textual sites feed from and invest in a material situation, which was the institutional arm of colonialism. Indochina was institutionally articulated in cartographic maps and surveys, in the new social spaces of cities and towns, in architectural and technological forms, through social technologies of discipline and welfare and in cultural and religious organisations. The aim of this thesis is to analyse, across a number of textual sites, the representation and institutionalisation of Otherness through the politics of space in the French colony of Indochina, Indochine in this sense becomes a spatial discourse. The French constructed a mental and physical space for Indochina by blanketing and suffocating the original cultural landscape, which in fact had to be ignored for this process to occur. What actually became manifest as a result of this projection stemmed from the French imagination. Just as the French manipulated space, language also underwent the same process of reduction. The Vietnamese script was latinised to make it more 'useable' and ‘accessible’. Through christening the union of Indochina; initiating a comprehensive writing reform; and renaming the streets in the colonial cities, the French used language us another tool for 'making transparent'. Furthermore, the colonial powers established a communication and transport network throughout the colony in an attempt to materialise their fictive (artificial) vision of a unified French Indochinese space. The accessibility and design of these different modes of transport reflected the gendered, racial and class divisions inherent in the colonial establishment. At the heart of representing and institutionalising Indochina was the desire to control and contain. This characterised French imperial ordering of space in the city and the rural areas. In rural areas land was divided into small parcels and alienated to individuals or worked into precise grids for the rubber plantation. In urban centres the native quarter was clearly demarcated from the European quarter which functioned as its modern, progressive Other. The rationale behind this segregation was premised on European, nineteenth century discourses of race, class, gender and hygiene. Influenced by Darwinian and neo-Lamarkian theories of race, this biological discourse identified the 'working class', 'women' and 'the native' as not only biologically but also culturally inferior. They were perceived as a potential, degenerative threat to the biological, cultural and industrial development of the nation. In the colonial context, space was thus ordered and domesticated to control the native population. Coextensively, the literature which springs from such a structure will be tainted by the same ideas, and thus the spaces it formulates within the readers mind feed on and reinforce this foundation. Examples of gender and indigenous narratives which contest this imaginative, transparent topography are analysed throughout this thesis. They provide instances of struggle and resistance which undermine the ideal/stereotypical level of architectural and planned space and delineate an alternative insight into colonial spatial and social relations. The fictional accounts of European women and indigenous writers both challenge and reaffirm the fixity of some of these idealised colonial boundaries. In various literary, historical, political, architectural and cinematic discourses Indochina has been und continues to be depicted as a modern city and exotic Utopia. Informed by the mood of nostalgia, exotic images of Indochina have resurfaced in contemporary French culture. France's continued desire to create, control and maintain an Indochinese space in the French public imagination reinforces the multi-layered, interconnected and persistent nature of colonial discourse.

Northward migration of Afro-Siberian Knots Calidris canutus canutus : high variability in Red Knot numbers visiting staging sites on the French Atlantic coast, 1979–2009

The Afro–Siberian Red Knot subspecies, Calidris canutus canutus, winters mainly on Banc d’Arguin, Mauritania, West Africa. An International Wader Study Group project carried out in 1979 suggested that during northward migration Red Knots cover their migration between the wintering grounds and the Siberian breeding grounds in two long-distance non-stop flights, stopping only in the Wadden Sea in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. Each year Red Knots also visit staging sites along the French Atlantic coast in addition to the German Wadden Sea. Ever since 1979, the French staging sites have been counted on a regular basis and here we present the count data from these 30 years. In some years more than 20% of the population used the French Atlantic coast as a staging site, but numbers are highly variable from one year to the next. We suggest that high numbers in France might occur when birds have to stop short of the Wadden Sea because of head-winds and/or a lack of tail-winds en route from West Africa.

Accounting for the multidimensional nature of the relationship between adult obesity and socio-economic status : the French second National Individual Survey on Food Consumption (INCA 2) dietary survey (2006–07)

The objective was to study the multidimensional nature of the relationship between adult obesity (OB) and socio-economic status (SES),
using comprehensive indices of SES taken separately or synthesised in an overall index. A nationally representative sample of adults aged
18–79 years was taken from the French second National Individual Survey on Food Consumption (INCA 2) dietary survey (2006–07).
Weight and height were measured and OB defined as BMI $ 30 kg/m². SES variables were reported in questionnaires and included
occupation, education and characteristics of household wealth. Composite indices of SES (household wealth and overall SES indices)
were computed by correspondence analysis, and relationships with OB were investigated with logistic regression analysis. In total, 11·8
(95% CI 10·1, 13·4) % of French adults were obese, without significant difference by sex. While no significant relationship was observed
in men, all SES indicators were inversely correlated to OB in women. Both education and the household wealth index were retained in the
stepwise multivariate model, confirming that different socio-economic variables are not necessarily proxies of each other regarding the OB
issue. On the other hand, ‘controlling for SES’ while including several measures of SES in multivariate models may lead to collinearity, and
thus over-adjustment. A more integrative approach may be to derive a synthetic index by including the SES factors available in a given
study. Beyond this methodological perspective, understanding how OB is related to the different dimensions of SES should help to
target the more vulnerable groups and increase the effectiveness of prevention.

The French consul's wife : memoirs of Céleste de Chabrillan in gold-rush Australia

A former Parisian courtesan, bare-back-rider, and polka dancer, Céleste de Chabrillan scandalized Melbourne when she arrived in 1854. Her vivid account of years spent in diplomatic circles and on the goldfields reveals her great energy and will.

Pompidou & Pompeia: a parallel between the management strategies of two cultural institutions in the French and Brazilian contexts

A presente pesquisa foi conduzida na forma de um estudo de caso de duas instituições culturais no contexto francês e brasileiro. O Centro Pompidou é um projeto presidencial de museu financiado pelo Estado, com a missão de tornar a arte moderna em todas as suas expressões acessíveis ao público em geral. O Sesc Pompeia é um centro multidisciplinar de cultura e esporte - financiado pelo dinheiro dos impostos e administrado pela Federação do Comércio . O Sesc Pompéia é dedicado à oferta de educação informal através do cultivo da mente e do corpo. O estudo examina se as teorias de dependência de recursos e de poder podem ser utilizadas para conceituar a relação que o Centro Pompidou e do Sesc Pompéia tem com seus stakeholders financeiros. Mais especificamente, será discutido em que medida o grau de dependência influencia a estratégia de gestão das instituições. O objetivo é de responder a pergunta seguinte: quais são as estratégias que as instituições adotam para reduzir sua dependência com relação a seus principais stakeholders financeiros? Finalmente algumas implicações práticas de gestão serão elaboradas a partir do paralelo entre as estratégias das duas instituições.