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BusinessWeek: January 10, 2000 |
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International -- Letter From Belgium
Where Many Lives Are Like Sad Movie Lines (int'l edition)
The film may be fiction, but in the gloomy town of Seraing, a suburb of Liege, the story is all too real. Rosetta's trailer park, her factory, her unemployment office, even the second-hand store to which she tries to sell her frayed clothes are real places in Seraing. "There are 20 million unemployed in Europe, so people really do live like Rosetta," says Jean-Pierre Dardenne, 48, Rosetta's co-director and co-producer with his brother, Luc, 46. TOUGH CHANGE. Like many parts of Europe, Seraing is still struggling through the transition from smokestack to information-based economy. An extensive welfare state has softened the blows, but the Continent is facing the hard reality that it can ill-afford generous social spending. Belgium and other European countries have been under increasing pressure to cut their budget deficits during the 1990s. Besides, handouts have contributed to the problem, encouraging the unemployed to dig in instead of moving to new jobs. "People don't want to leave their homes and families," says Vincent Brose, 27, standing in the gloomy light of the unemployment office. Brose operated steel presses before injuring his hand. The despair of people like Brose is the subject of a series of French-language films about unemployed, marginal characters in the economically depressed, rainy, and gray north of France and south of Belgium. Ca Commence Aujourd'hui depicts a teacher struggling to deal with delinquents in Valenciennes. La Vie Revee des Anges looks at two young women struggling to make ends meet in Lille. As for Seraing, it looks bombed out. Deserted factories stand like empty industrial shells, their windows cracked and broken. There are plans to tear them down, but "knocking down an empty building costs a lot of money, particularly since these factories are so large," says Rene Rockic, the city's information director. Downtown, many stores on the once-bustling Rue Cockerill are closed. Second-hand clothing is one of Seraing's few flourishing commodities. "It's the only way people here can afford to dress," says Jacqueline Nils. Her second-hand store was used for the scene where the storekeeper presses Rosetta to take $10 for her clothes instead of the $15 she needs. Unlike many unemployed but transient Americans who pick up and leave the misery behind for Texas or California, most unemployed here won't budge. By law, European Union citizens are allowed to work anywhere in 15 countries, but few have the language or the inclination to cross borders. The Netherlands, 15 minutes north by highway, has unemployment of 3% and lots of openings. But people won't cross the border. When a steel mill closed in northern France, workers were offered jobs in sunny Provence. Only a few accepted, and they returned north after that mill closed instead of finding employment in Southern France. "European workers simply are not as mobile as Americans," says Jean-Pierre Garson, an Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development migration specialist. Nor does Belgium's social welfare system encourage workers here to find new jobs. "When people were laid off from the mills, they received generous payments, which cushioned the pain--but encouraged them to do nothing," says director Luc Dardenne. Belgians can be on the dole their whole lives. After Finnish elevator company Kone closed its factory recently, Marcel Hassens, 52, took the Belgian government's early-retirement package. It pays him 50% of his final salary but forbids him from ever taking a job--to open the market to younger workers. "After 35 years running these machines, I don't have any other skills anyhow," he says. Even young adults who have never worked and who live at home get $800 a month in welfare from the government, encouraging a new generation to depend on welfare. "When you have your friends and aren't forced out to get a job, you don't," says Regine Micha, 23. So she lives with her parents, occasionally working as a substitute teacher. If she were offered a full-time position, Micha says, "it would be difficult to leave home." Until recently, Seraing offered its inhabitants more than enough work, so they never faced the question of moving away for jobs. British immigrant John Cockerill set up a steel mill near his coal mine in Seraing in 1817. As late as the 1950s, some 50,000 toiled at the furnaces along the Meuse River. "Workers in Seraing were well-paid--the real worker's aristocracy," recalls Luc Dardenne, who was born and raised in the city. Rows of comfortable, neat, red-brick houses reached up into the hills above the mills. The city center was vibrant. "I remember a town full of stores and restaurants," says his brother. During the 1960s and 1970s, the coal mines played out and demand for steel collapsed. Today, steel company Cockerill employs only 3,600, and Seraing unemployment is above 18%. The Dardenne brothers grew up during the town's declining years. Their father worked in an industrial design department but was laid off in 1978, at age 52. After graduating from high school, the brothers moved away: first Luc, in 1970, to study acting in Brussels; then, Jean-Pierre, in 1972, to study philosophy at the University of Louvain-la-Neuve. But they remain faithful to Seraing. "We didn't want someone [to play Rosetta] with a Parisian accent," says Jean-Paul. So he chose Emilie Dequenne, 18, a Belgian amateur actress. "I know people who live worse than Rosetta, without even a bathroom or toilet," says Dequenne, who grew up nearby. Her portrayal won Cannes' best-actress award. ART AND LIFE. More than 185,000 Belgians have seen Rosetta, which opened in September, "the best box office in memory for a Belgian film," says Eliane du Bois, director of the Cinelibre, Rosetta's Belgian distributor. An additional 670,000 tickets have been sold in France, bringing total receipts to some $6 million. The film is opening in 20 other countries. Rosetta inspired Belgian socialist leader Laurette Onkelinx to propose a Rosetta Plan, requiring companies to offer a quota of jobs to under-25-year-olds who have never worked. But business leaders oppose mandatory hiring, and Green Party leaders scoff that Rosetta wouldn't be eligible because she had worked. "There are no easy answers," the Dardennes admit. Rosetta is wildly popular in Seraing. "Yes, it shows a negative image of the town, and much of what it says is true," admits Maryse Daenen, who runs the Espace Jeune Cafe. "But people here are proud that somebody is talking about them." And perhaps pride is a start. Return to top | |
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