French Threatened by "Invasion of Plumbers"

French government/EU says: don't worry...at least they're not German.

Seriously, though - according to that AP article, the French economy is in a shambles:

Unemployment stands at 10.2 percent, and disappointing first-quarter data last week poured cold water on the government's forecast for growth of 2.0 percent to 2.5 percent for 2005 and its pledge to cut joblessness to 9 percent this year.

A series of high-profile moves by companies to outsource manufacturing or services to lower-wage economies, often in Eastern Europe, also has worried French workers and their unions.

"The French have had trouble accepting the enlargement of the EU," Moreau Defarges said. "Some people really believe that the best policy would be simply to close France off."

Andrzej Kowalczyk, whose Polish-registered construction company has a subsidiary in Paris, says he's been feeling the heat from the campaign.

"At the moment there's a lot of customers who don't want to work with Poles because they're afraid, even when (the workers) have all the right papers," he said in an interview.

He said few French want to do construction work anyway, because the pay is only slightly better than generous state welfare handouts. Employees below management level are "mostly North Africans and Poles," Kowalczyk said.

Therein lies the problem. When the benefits of welfare are equivalent to those of working...what else would you expect?