Parliament votes on whether French should work more
France’s long holidays and 35-hour working week could become a thing of the past today when MPs hold a final vote on whether to dismantle the controversial shortened week and allow employees to work more.
The Senate, France’s upper house of parliament, is widely expected to approve the government-backed bill allowing companies to negotiate new contracts that would effectively restore the previous 39-hour working week.
The lower house National Assembly approved the reform by 370 votes to 180 in its first reading last month, almost three years after the general election that ousted the Socialists from power.
President Jacques Chirac’s conservatives, who are pushing for the changes, control both houses of parliament.
The Socialist government introduced the shortened 35 hour working week between 1998 and 2000 as a means of reducing soaring unemployment. The idea was that companies would hire more employees to compensate.
But France still has an unemployment rate of nearly 10%. Chirac has criticised the shortened workweek as a ”brake” on economic development and job creation.
The new measure would not formally dismantle the 35 hour working week but would make it more flexible by giving workers the option of working more – on a voluntary basis.
Opponents of the new measure contend that the shortened working week would be effectively destroyed. The reform is particularly unpopular with those who have grown accustomed to spending less time in the office.
Earlier this month, almost a million people took part in nationwide strikes and protests over the working time reform – as well as other threats to workers’ benefits and public sector pay.
Former Socialist minister Martine Aubry, who drafted the original 35 hour law, has accused the government of “trying to turn the clock back 40 years”.
