French President Jacques Chirac said Friday he would press ahead with a
contentious labor law making it easier to fire workers, but he offered some
concessions in hopes of calming furious protests that led to nationwide strikes.
Chirac said he would reduce a trial period during which employees could be
summarily dismissed from two years to one, and he would require employers to
offer reasons for the dismissal.
In preserving the principle that workers under 26 would face a lack of job
security, Chirac came down on the side of his prime minister, Dominique de
Villepin, who has argued that businesses will welcome the added flexibility,
encouraging hirings that will bring down France's chronic youth unemployment
rates.
The contested jobs law "can be an effective tool for employment," Chirac
said.
The concessions appeared to anger, not appease, opponents of the law, who
wanted it scrapped altogether.
"We don't want to negotiate ... we don't want it at all," Bruno Julliard,
head of the largest students' union, said on TF1 television. "The president had
the chance to give a clear answer, which he didn't do."
The head of the Worker's Force union, Jean-Claude Mailly, said strikes
already planned for next Tuesday should go ahead.
A modified law "is not what was asked for," he said.
Before Chirac's speech, hundreds of students converged peacefully on the
Place de la Bastille in Paris to demand that he not enact the law.
The French leader, however, said youth unemployment is a problem that cannot
be ignored, and he reiterated his conservative government's determination to
make labor laws more flexible to free up enterprises.
"The time has come to move forward," Chirac said. "We must work together to
end this shocking situation whereby companies, out of fear of excessive
inflexibilities, prefer to refuse an order or to move overseas rather than hire,
even when so many people are trapped in unemployment."
Young workers face a 22 percent unemployment rate — the highest in Western
Europe.
Most French workers hold a permanent contract and can plan to hold their jobs
until retirement. Employers who want to fire a worker must give three months'
notice to most employees, pay fines to the state and provide up to three years'
severance pay.
The crisis has wrecked government ties with unions, and made labor leaders
unusually united. It has radicalized youths, heightening already widespread
fears about globalization and reviving suspicions about bosses and capitalism —
possibly causing a long-lasting setback for the cause of reform.
Many youths who have protested fear job market challenges from rising
economies like India and China and hope to secure permanent, highly protected
job contracts that many of their parents enjoy.