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This Contract Is Deceased
Well, as predicted, president Jacques Chirac announced on Friday that he would sign the controversial CPE employment contract into law. He added, however, that he had demanded two changes to the law - both of which look likely to make the new contract worse than useless.
Chirac's prime minister Dominque de Villepin proposed that the CPE would allow young workers to be sacked any time up to the end of their second year in a job with no need for explanation. The first concession Chirac threw unions and students was that the contract be shortened to only a year. It may or may not be preferable to be sacked after a year than sacked after two years, but cutting the length of the contract in half gives the CPE the same status as the CDD, France's current short-term contract.
With the CDD, young workers are kept on for short three or six-month periods, with no firm guarantee of a full-time CDI position afterwards. The revised CPE is not sufficiently different from the CDD to make it more appealling to workers or employers.
Additionally, Chirac's second amendment - which makes employers give a reason for ending the employment contract - makes the situation even worse. One would imagine that it is reasonable to expect an employer to give staff members, even those on short-term contracts, a reason for letting them go. And yes, this is fine if the employer can simply fill in a form that says it didn't work out / I don't like him / he's lazy / I need to channel my resources in different areas / I'm not making as much profit as I would like. Fair enough.
However, this being France, any reason for dismissal is open to union intervention and probable court proceedings. Employers could find their reasons for sacking a worker under the terms of the CPE questioned - and their decision subject to France's standard long and costly dismissal procedures.
Chirac's amendment is not fully clear yet. If Employers can sign a simple form and that's it, then perhaps something can be salvaged from the CPE. If even this cannot be guaranteed, as seems likely, the contract is dead.
So who is going to kill it off? The prime minister's rivals are circling. Most have their attention fixed on forthcoming elections, not least the 2007 presidential race, in which de Villepin was expected to be a leading contender. Nicolas Sarkozy, who poses as a reformer but found it impossible to support even Villepin's minor labour reform, has commended Chirac's intervention. Jean-Louis Borloo, the "Minister for Social Cohesion", has admitted that his department has sent a letter to 220 branches advising them not to sign the CPE.
There are also reports that Borloo's ministry will not approve the printing of the first CPE contracts.
So you have a CPE that is barely different from the standard short-term contract, except that it subjects employers to legal proceedings similar to those associated with full-time workers. And even if you wanted to sign it, no documents will be made available by the ministry in charge.
And still the unions and students plan another day of action tomorrow? Apart from the brave and isolated voices of France's small liberal groups, some of whom organised a rally in Paris on Sunday to protest against the latest strike threats, there is little opposition to the unions' iron grip on the country. One surprising dissenting voice came from the president of the Sorbonne University, of all places. In a declaration that will probably lead to him being sacked, Jean-Robert Pitte declared "I'm very angry about the demagogy, the ignorance and the stupidity of the young and of the French."
"Today's youth don't have dreams, they have illusions. To dream is to want to accomplish something difficult that is a challenge. Instead youngsters believe they have a right to everything and if things don't go the way they want it's someone else's fault."
Pitte argued that the lack of public debate on the CPE has caused many of the problems France is experiencing now:
"They say: 'Oh, these poor students! Of course they have a right to an open-ended work contract!' It's absurd... Who is going to tell these youngsters the truth? Get real."
Despite Pitte's timely protests, the CPE is dead.
With no support from either his boss or his ministers, Dominque de Villepin's position is untenable. He has to go too.
Where this leaves France - almost unique in the West in its inability to face up to economic realities - is one for future historians, but the government and elite's surrender to the mob could well be the point when economists and outside investors decide that the nation was beyond help.
