Commentary: The difference between Czech and French politicians
This is really interesting: One comment by Maurice Taylor, head of the American firm Titan International, about the work morale of the French employees of a Goodyear factory has upset almost all of France. Taylor wrote to the French Government that "French employees receive high wages but work only three hours. They get hour-long breaks for snacks and lunch, talk for three hours and work for three." He went on to add that he is no longer interested in French workers or preserving the factory in France and would therefore be closing it.
According to Agence France-Presse, French Re-Industrialization Minister Arnaud Montebourg immediately responded and has declared war on Taylor: "Your extremist, offensive words testify to your total ignorance of our country. Be sure that I will have the relevant French government authorities double the controls on tires imported by you," he warned Titan International yesterday.
The minister also reminded Taylor that many American firms operate successfully in France and that French tire manufacturer Michelin is profitable and world-famous. A representative of the French trade union headquarters CGT, Mickael Wamen, also spoke up, saying that Taylor probably belongs in a psychiatric treatment facility instead of at the head of an international company.
It struck me what is missing about our Czech democratic politicians when they hear others label Romani people in general as lazy (to say nothing of calling them inadaptables or even straight-out parasites). Could it be that, unlike their French colleagues, they have have no idea of how to behave in such cases?
Where, for example, were Czech PM Petr Nečas or Deputy PM Karel Schwarzenberg when the famous racist Senator Doubrava wanted to send "the Army after the Gypsies", when he announced that "Gypsies consider work to be the worst possible way to make a living", when he said they are too lazy to learn and that no one is preventing their access to education, or when he even went so far as to claim that incest is a completely ordinary occurrence among Romani people? What went wrong with their hearing?
