French Life-expat France

I’m not usually one to bring a political angle to my blogging, but today I think I will make an exception. Hundreds of thousands of French are on strike today, marching around the city centres, so I will appear either ignorant or stupid if I claim to be reporting about life in France while not mentioning the big things that happen. Don’t worry too much, I can’t imagine the entry will be weighed down with complicated political explanations.

The CPE (contrat premiere embauche) is a new contract that the French prime minister has come up with in an attempt to help the young find work. The current big problem in France is that once someone is employed they have very strong employment rights, and it is almost impossible to get rid of them again, even if they are completely useless at the job. This, coupled with very high social security costs for the employee and the 35 hour week, means that employers don’t dare employ anyone at all unless they can help it. This is not good for employment levels in the country, and it is not a good way to create a booming economy.

Hence the CPE. This new employment contract entitles employers to recruit someone, but then to dismiss them more or less without reason or explanation during the first two years of the employment.

Good for employers and undoubtedly good for the country, because it will create jobs. But is it good for the young? They say not. They claim that the job insecurity it creates will be insupportable, and that companies will simply get rid of staff after 23 months, and replace them with new CPE employees, to avoid the costs involved in having full-time employees.

Problem is, the young don’t currently have any job security because they don’t have any jobs. Youth unemployment in France is at a shockingly high level. So it is less than clear what job security they are concerned about losing. If you have the choice between not finding work until you are 30, but then being sure you have a ‘job for life’, or of finding work straightaway but with the risk that it is not permanent, which would you choose. I can see the arguments for both. As an economist I would choose the second, because it creates jobs and improves the skills ot the population as a whole. But if I was a young French person which would I choose?

Thing I don’t understand is, why would people be so concerned. You get taken on under a CPE contract, work hard, do a good job, and after two years you will be indispensable to your employer, who will be very happy to take you on full-time. But if you make no effort at all, are lazy, or have no aptitude for the job, you don’t get kept on. Does anyone really think you should be? Errr…yes, lots of people as it seems, which is why the demonstrations are taking place.

You have to remember that France is the country where every child’s dream is not to be an architect, or a doctor, or an entrepreneur. It is to be a government employee - again, for the simple reason it is well paid and is a job for life. Completely uninteresting as well, but hey, you can’t have everything.

Anyway, a two-tier system has evolved: those in full time work, with fantastic and protected benefits and pensions, and those who are not in full time work. So although the majority of young people do not expect to find work any day soon, they know that when they do eventually find a job they can join the ‘elite’ first tier.

Problem is that in the long-term it can’t work. You can’t pay big pensions, employ unproductive staff at high salaries, and pay for a large part of the population to be unemployed, while also remaining competitive in the world economy. Othes will make the same things as you but cheaper or better. Companies will fail, unemployment will rise and so on. Not a good long-term plan.

Which brings us back to the government’s problem. Whenever they try and break down this two-tier system, the whole country goes on strike and, as often as not, the government backs down about 20 minutes later, rather than bring the country to a standstill and lose the next election.

So you can’t blame them for trying, but they need to try a bit harder (to be fair M Villepin, the Prime Minister, is trying to say he won’t back down, but nobody seems convinced yet). If France is to remain a key industrial nation, and I truly hope it does because I love so many things about France, it needs to get passed this enormous obstacle. I fear the current government is not the one to make it happen though.

Anyway, hopefully you now know why, yet again, aeroplanes in and out of France are all delayed today, and why, yet again, you are seing crowds of angry Frenchmen on the news. Sorry for this almost serious interruption to my normal trivialities, usual service will be resumed as soon as possible.