Do subsidized work contracts enhance capabilities of the long-term unemployed ? Evidence based on French Data

In the 1990’s, France introduced different subsidised contracts to create jobs targeted at long-term unemployment. These programs were supposed to help the beneficiaries to enhance their employability. It is then interesting to use the “capabilities” approach to assess their impact. From the panel of the Research and Statistical Department of the French Ministry of labour and social affairs (Dares) concerning employment policy beneficiaries, an initial analysis explored the beneficiaries’ refined functionings and a second how they subjectively perceive their standard of living. Comparing beneficiaries’ perceptions to those of a control group provided the necessary data to evaluate the real impact of these employment schemes on beneficiaries. Globally, subsidised employment contracts provide beneficiaries’ with an increased number of opportunities or choices that can be achieved and thus can be said to improve their quality of life. Furthermore, the private sector employment contract to the long-term unemployed (the so-called “CIE”) is generally viewed more positively than the fixed-term contract in the public sector (the so-called “CES”) although the latter is viewed as more successful in allowing beneficiaries to “feel useful” and “regain self-esteem”.

Langue et imaginaire

Cet article explore, à partir de romans et d’essais (en particulier ceux de Ferenc Karinthy, Nancy Huston, Julia Kristeva, Claude Esteban), certaines créations imaginaires suscitées par la relation du sujet avec sa ou ses langues. Une première partie s’attache au fantasme de la langue hermétiquement étrangère puis, pôle opposé, à celui de la « panglossie » où toute langue apparaît comme connue. La deuxième partie est centrée sur la problématique langue maternelle / langue étrangère et sur l’expérience du sujet bilingue, problématique du déchirement, susceptible cependant de trouver éventuellement une résolution sur le plan de la création.This article will explore imaginary creations that are informed by the relationship of the subject to his or her language(s). Examples will be drawn from novels and essays by authors such as Ferenc Karinthy, Nancy Huston, Julia Kristeva and Claude Esteban. The first part of the article explores a vision of language as hermetically foreign and then moves on to the polar opposite, a “panglossic” image, in which all languages appear to be known. The second part of the article centres on the first-language/foreign-language problematic—the experience of the bilingual subject, who is torn between two languages, a problematic which can, however, find its resolution in the creative process

Les voix parallèles de Nancy Huston

Les voix parallèles de Nancy Huston — Cet article s'attache à la problématique des écrivains bilingues ou polyglottes (Eisa Triolet, Vladimir Nabokov, Julien Green), et plus particulièrement à celle de Nancy Huston. Quelles raisons poussent un écrivain ou une écrivaine à utiliser pour la création une langue seconde plutôt que sa langue maternelle ? Quand l'auteur s'auto-traduit, s'agit-il d'une nouvelle création ? Nancy Huston était-elle en droit de recevoir le Prix du gouverneur général dans la catégorie fiction fancophone pour Cantique des plaines, « réécriture » de Plainsong par l'auteure ?Nancy Huston's Parallel Voices — This article examines the case of bilingual and polyglot writers, such as Nancy Huston, Elsa Triolet, Vladimir Nabokov and Julian Green. Why does a writer choose to write in his or her second language ? When an author translates his or her own work, is this a new text ? Was Nancy Huston eligible to receive the Governor-General's Award in the French fiction category for Cantique des plaines, her own rewriting of her novel Plainsong

« Le soleil a rendez-vous avec la lune… » ou des problèmes posés par le genre dans la traduction vers le français

« Le soleil a rendez-vous avec la lune » ou des problèmes posés par le genre dans la traduction vers le français — Après un bref exposé des données linguistiques concernant le genre grammatical, cet article se propose d'explorer les problèmes liés à l'expression du genre et du sexe dans la traduction des textes littéraires. Il illustre d'abord l'influence du genre sur le travail de l'imaginaire, puis, à partir d'une nouvelle de Ruth Rendell, il montre combien l'obligation d'exprimer le sexe en français alors que l'anglais peut rester ambigu (the lover = l'amant ou l'amante) rend difficile l'entretien du suspense policier. Enfin, la traduction d'un poème d'Erin Mouré fournit l'occasion d'examiner d'autres exemples des difficultés qui surviennent quand on traduit de l'anglais vers une langue comme le français dont tous les substantifs sont affectés d'un genre."Le soleil a rendez-vous avec la lune" or Problems Relating to Gender in Translating Towards French — After a brief survey of the linguistic data concerning grammatical gender, this article explores the problems related to the expression of gender and sex in the translation of literary texts. First we look at the influence of gender on the imagination. Then, taking a short story by Ruth Rendell as an example, we show how the obligation to express the sex of protagonists in French can make it difficult to maintain suspense in a detective novel. Whereas English can keep a certain ambiguity ("the lover" can be either male or female), French is obliged to specify. Finally, the translation of a poem by Erin Mouré provides other examples of difficulties which arise translating from English into a language such as French, in which nouns have gender

The Environmental Commerce Clause

This Article studies every commerce clause decision of the modem Supreme Court that involves the scope of governmental authority to regulate the use of natural resources. These decisions comprise what I will call the environmental commerce clause -- the Court\u27s interpretation of the limits mandated by the commerce clause upon federal and state legislation protecting natural resources. Overall, the Court has been limiting the scope of the affirmative commerce clause while simultaneously expanding the reach of the dormant commerce clause. As a result, both federal and state efforts to protect the natural environment have been rendered constitutionally suspect. This study supports two principal conclusions. First, the modern Court has been consistently hostile to environmental regulation. In the context of the commerce clause, for the past quarter century the Court has rarely upheld a natural resource law, whether promulgated by Congress or by the states. This Article considers cases in which the Court invalidated the governmental regulation under scrutiny in ten out of eleven instances. Observing this trend, Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Blackmun accused some of their colleagues of engineering a return to laissez faire government. As a second principal conclusion, this study has uncovered a subtle inconsistency between the Court\u27s affirmative and dormant commerce clause analyses. In particular, when the federal government has sought to regulate the use of water and land under the affirmative commerce clause, the Court has emphasized the natural, noncommercial nature of the protected resources rather than the commercial nature of the regulated activity. In the absence of commercial or economic activity, therefore, the federal government lacks commerce clause regulatory authority under the rationale of Lopez. Simultaneously, when the states have attempted to regulate the use of land, water, or fish, the Court has treated such things as market commodities rather than natural resources. As a result, the Court has invalidated those state regulations under the dormant commerce clause as constituting an undue interference with commodities in the flow of interstate commerce

A Background History of Directional Drilling in Michigan

Why should we care about directional drilling? A lot of people care, both at the federal and state levels. Many politicans have weighed in on this issue of whether or not directional drilling should be permitted. Beyond state politics, an interesting legal debate has begun over whether the federal or state government has primary regulatory authority over this amphibious sort of drilling, which starts on the land but ends up under the Great Lakes