France’s 10 per cent unemployment rate, which is almost double of the other two prominent European economies Germany and Britain, has no doubt got French authorities worried, prompting them to initiate reforms in labour laws, which led to violent protests.

France’s 35-hour working-week limit was introduced in 2000, and it happens to be the lowest in Europe. The exisiting labour laws in France offer a great deal of protection to workers.

Employers cannot fire employees or make them redundant if the entreprise is profitable. Social protection is something that a French worker expects.

This won't work Indeed France was probably the first country in the world that decreed a 10-hour work-shift for the worker way back in the 19th Century. It is only later that the eight-hour-shift as we know now and mandated by the International Labour Organization came into force throughout the world.

The proposed labour law makes recruitment and dismissal easier. Some French academicians feel the Hollande government did not discuss these sensitive issues with trade unions in depth.

The major trade unions Confédération Général du Travail and Force Ouvrière were particularly opposed to two amendments, one of which was to alter the work-shift by a referendum within the company so as to meet market demands.

The unions felt that in small organisations, the workers would be held to ransom by the management. Protests and violence have been a way in which the French workers historically have acquired rights and social protection. However, many feel due to the violence related to the strike, the government may manage to pass the law and this could lead to workers having no protection whatsoever within the organisation.

It is interesting that Hollande chose Manuel Valls as his Prime Minister. He is considered a “rightist social leader” after having said at his electoral campaign in 2012 that the world of finance is his adversary.

A section of the French public does feel that the government has not paid enough attention to the views of trade unions. A disturbing fact is that violence escalated as a number of protest marches were taken over by bands of young masked men, wanting to take advantage of the legitimate demands of the trade unions and their protest marches, indulg in hooliganism.

This has made the police take repressive measures. The deadlock between the trade unions and the government is yet to be broken. According to the workers’ unions, France’s productivity is among the highest in Europe, despite the high rate of unemployment.

The road ahead Meanwhile, the campaign for the 2017 presidential election is still wide open, although Hollande has not formally declared himself a candidate to fight the presidential election. If he does, he may have to have face Marine Le Pen president of the National Front or even Nicolas Sarkozy of Les Republicans party. It is a bit disheartening to see France go the way of other countries where workers pay the price for the onward march of large entreprises, where the profit motive rules the roost.

The French government would do well to create jobs for its people, which may be a more humane measure to bring down the high rate of unemployment.

The writer, a PhD in Indo-French bilateral relations, teaches at Loyola College, Chennai

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