Moderate unions may help Emmanuel Macron pass labour reforms
But expect France’s left-wing radicals to hit the streets come the autumn
FRENCH reformists have promised for decades to streamline the country’s 3,000-page labour code, only to be stymied by the country’s mighty trade unions. Emmanuel Macron has vowed to break the jinx, and is likely to face the same sort of resistance. The conventional wisdom holds that the showdown will come in September, once the government publishes details of its plans. These include limiting the ability of courts to order lavish compensation for sacked workers, simplifying worker councils inside firms and making it possible to negotiate more issues at the company level rather than in national sector-wide agreements. Parliament’s lower house voted on July 13th to let the government pass the reforms by ordinance, without much further debate.
This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Seasons of discontent”
From the July 29th 2017 edition
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