What's the matter with France? Young people are angry, Muslims feel unwelcome, and the economy is hurting. 'Springtime in Paris' used to be more fun.

Viewing the protests, riots, and general mayhem in France in recent months from across the Atlantic, it's hard for Americans not to wonder: Why do France's young people feel so alienated, threatened, and angry?

In March and April, following the lead of thousands of college students, millions of people took to the streets in Paris and other cities to protest a new labor law that would have made it easier to hire and fire workers under age 26. Facing the prospect of more unrest, President Jacques Chirac agreed on April 10 to rescind the law, which was intended to help create jobs and jump-start France's sluggish economy.

Last October, it was young Muslims in poor and working-class suburbs of Paris and other cities who rioted for three weeks after the accidental deaths of two teenagers who believed they were being pursued by the police. The turmoil highlighted the growing alienation of the country's immigrant youth, and spurred a national debate about France's failure to integrate its 5 million Muslims, most of North African descent, into French society.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

For Americans accustomed to picturesque images of cafes and museums in Paris, and the chateaux and vineyards of Burgundy, the chaotic scenes were difficult to fathom.

But the upheaval among France's young people highlights long-standing strains in France's economic and social systems, which are built on quasi-socialist ideals that date back as far as the French Revolution in 1789, when the monarchy was overthrown and a republic created under the banner of "liberte, egalite, fraternite."

Today, France has one of the widest social safety nets in the world, including a much-admired health-care system and some of the most stringent workers' rights laws. But those legal protections and generous benefits (including a minimum five weeks of vacation a year) make it costly for companies to add employees and almost impossible to lay them off. This discourages hiring and is one reason for France's high unemployment rate (22 percent among young people, twice that in the U.S.) and anemic economy.

But as the reaction to the labor law demonstrated, many of the French like things as they are, even if the nation's long-term economic health is at risk. They argue that France's policies make for a healthier, more humane society than that produced by "Anglo-Saxon" free-market economic policies favored by Britain and the U.S.

TWO-YEAR CONTRACTS

Invoking 1789, as the French often do, Charlotte Billaud, a 21-year-old university student protesting in Paris, said the new labor law would have been like "living beneath a guillotine." She explained, "When you can be fired without reason, you do not dare criticize your boss or join a union."

The labor law would have allowed companies to offer two-year contracts to workers under 26, but it provided that those contracts could be ended for any reason.

The law was partly a response to last fall's riots in largely Arab suburbs, where joblessness is high and hope low. The idea was that employers, freed of the need to keep bad hires on the payroll, would be more willing to employ young people, especially young Muslims. Many of them are the children of immigrants from Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, former French colonies in North Africa. They face discrimination and have felt unwelcome by mainstream French society.

In contrast to America, which has generally embraced the ideal of a melting pot that at the same time allows for ethnic, racial, and religious differences, much of France has yet to accept the nation's increasingly multiethnic makeup.

A FRENCH IDENTITY

In fact, ethnic differences in France have long been de-emphasized in favor of an overall French identity. In theory, this was a way to avoid returning to the stratification of society--by wealth and class--that existed before the Revolution. It was as also a way to avoid the societal divisions that many French see in multicultural nations like the U.S.

France's Constitution guarantees equality to all, but that has long been interpreted to mean that ethnic or religious differences are not the business of the state. All citizens are French, end of story, the government says, a lofty position that, nonetheless, has allowed discrimination to thrive.

But critics like Yazid Sabeg, an Algerian immigrant and prominent French business leader, say the French model, never updated, has failed, and people remain separated in the housing projects, in their schools, and in their heads. "France always talks about avoiding ghettoization," Sabeg says, "but it has already happened."