This is not off topic. The French riots over the weekend combined with the escalating social unrest around proposed changes to France’s employment laws have left me profoundly sad. I know it is good sport to poke fun at the French but this is a serious issue with serious consequences for a country that has much to offer yet seems unable to free up its economy.
The current employment laws were created to protect people from rampant unemployment but they never tackled the fundamental issue of the master and servant relationship that pervades many businesses. It is one of the reasons I find Loic LeMeur so refreshing. For those that don’t know, he has (probably) been the single most influential person in French communications over the last few years. While many shrug in despair at the annual round of airport staff and road haulier strikes, what is not understood is that the strike is the only effective way for mostly publicly employed French workers to express their discontent. OK, it gets abused from time to time but that’s the reality of French employee relations.
The difficulty is that France is locked into a system where protection of the rights of individual employees is sacrosanct. I don’t condone or condemn – that is for France. But it is clear that the proposals to have an initial two year period of employment uncertainty for young people are reviled more than the status quo. Essentially, the country doesn’t trust its leaders. Prime minister de Villepin sees this as a way of relieving youth unemployment but I don’t see the logic. This sounds horribly like the introduction of the now discredited law which penalised employers for allowing workers to exceed working 35 hours per week. Instead of relieving unemployment, it merely added to the burden French business faces and reduced living standards. Why should you care?
Many Brits are buying up chunks of France, often renovating the countryside. In the part of France I lived in, we saw a trend where British ex-pats brought over British workmen to renovate property rather than using local craftsmen. I personally felt this was wrong, especially as French plumbing and electrics are different. I found French workmen to be slower than their British counterparts but much more thorough. They also respect the ‘devis’ or contract you sign for any worl.
Also, if you renovate a property and it’s your 2nd home and you cannot prove the cost of work as having been done by French TVA (VAT) registered workmen, the cost is disallowed. That’s before you get clobbered for 25% CGT after the application of an artificial rate of inflation based on the original cost and which doesn’t kick in for the first 5 years of ownership. Maybe the growing number of ex-pats can do something useful for the French economy by ensuring local people are used wherever possible. If what I saw when last in France is an indicator, there’s more than enough work to go around. Especially in the countryside which is slowly being de-populated by local people, anxious to find work and who have to migrate to the large cities.
In the meantime, the International Herald Tribune says more strikes are planned.
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