French Life-expat France

Yesterday evening I happened upon a TV interview with Segolene Royal, one of the two main contenders in the forthcoming French Presidential Elections. This did little to cheer me up, and while I am poorly placed to offer political commentary, I’m going to anyway.

Now as always my comments come with the proviso that I might have misunderstood something, but I believe the gist was that, in an attempt to solve the youth unemployment problem in France, she proposed that the government would pick up the bill for the first six months for any company bold enough to employ someone, giving the individual the chance to prove themselves without the employer being dragged into terminable lawsuits and enormous expense when they decide the person is unsuitable.

A bold initiative! The problem is very real, and something needs to be done. But the answer is, I think, to remove the handicaps facing the employer, rather than leave them in place and let the government pay the wages, while also adding another whole raft of bureaucracy.

I know someone who is on a two-year contract because they were ‘long term unemployed’ so their employer gets special concessions. At the end of the two years, the employer is letting them go, although they are suitable for the work, and taking on another long-term unemployed. Why wouldn’t they, it costs them much less. But it doesn’t go far in solving unemployment.

Point is, the same will probably happen here with the 6 month youth employment contract. At the end of 6 months, the employer will have the choice - keep the employee, and pay them a salary, or get rid of them and get another ‘free’ employee. Tough choice.

The idea of changing employment rules so that the employers themselves want to employ people doesn’t seem to have arisen.

The second question I listened to was from someone whose work was being ‘deplaced’ - the company was sacking 50 employees because they could get the same work done in Poland much cheaper. The answer wasn’t clear, and I don’t know what answer would have been appropriate.

Of course, a politician is unlikely to say ‘tough, that’s market forces’ - instead there was talk of cooperative enterprises and so on. What I didn’t hear, unless I went to bed before it was explained, is that the solution lies in solving unemployment as a whole, by lifting the obstacles on employment, so that people don’t live in complete trauma at the thought of being unemployed.

As ever, there was little talk of who was going to be lucky enough to foot the bill.

Sorry to go all political, but I find it quite depressing thinking of hundreds of thousands of young unemployed, for the large part wanting to work, yet facing a complete wall of obstacles and administrative difficulties.

I promise I’ll be more cheerful tomorrow!