Rioting for Tenure:

It doesn't seem as though France has much of an economic future if this type of thing continues. They have to transition away from a system of guaranteed tenure for all workers and towards an American employment-at-will like rule if they want to compete in the global economy.

Future predictions are something that I don't often engaged in -- because so many people get it wrong. There is talk about "the Euro" beating the dollar for ultimate future global economic hegemony. Well, the only way that that's going to happen is if their economy can compete with ours. And the only way Europe can compete with America, in the long term, is if their economy further deregulates (and if they cut their top marginal tax rates) -- at least deregulates to America's level of economic flexibility (which is far from ideal laissez faire capitalism; but relatively speaking, it's better in America than most if not all of Western Europe, save for maybe Switzerland).

But...if this type of nonsense continues in France and other parts of Western Europe, I'd put my eggs in the dollar's basket.