With his ratings in freefall, the neoliberal standard-bearer unveils his labour law ‘reforms’ against a swelling tide of anger 

In the French school calendar, September’s start is the ‘rentrée’ – the return to studies and sombre, disciplined confinement after the liberation of the long summer break. Beyond the school gates, there’s a generalised sense of coming down to earth, of reengaging with issues and challenges as the days shorten and summer pleasures fade. 

This September, there’s a charge in the early autumn air, a sense of something big brewing. 

Alas for the ‘miracle man’, the latest polls suggest that these nuggets have done little to slow, let alone reverse, the emphatic downward thrust of his popularity ratings.  According to a YouGov France poll for HuffPost and CNEWS published on September 4, Macron now has an approval rating of just 30%: down from 43% at the end of June and 36% in late July. It’s difficult to exaggerate how dismal these figures are.  Even Francois Hollande, widely acknowledged as France’s least effective head of state of recent years, managed to command a 46% approval rating at the same point in his presidency.

For Macron, much now hinges on the response to his labour law proposals: the 36 measures to be presented as ordinances to the French National Assembly for rubber stamping later this month. These target three central axioms of the existing Code de Travail: (1) the primacy of sector-level agreements governing workers’ rights and conditions; (2) rules governing redundancy procedures, including those relating to labour tribunals; and (3) the central role of unions. 

The enterprise rules, okay?

The first prong of Macron’s assault on French workers involves discarding the idea that agreements on wages, conditions and entitlements should apply across a given sector. Instead, individual enterprises will be given the freedom to ‘negotiate’ their own agreements and use new tools to bypass existing rules.  Companies will also be empowered to invoke ‘competitiveness’ considerations as a means to bear down on labour; for example, in the event of a downturn, they will be free to strike rapid, ‘simplified’ deals with a union or works council to cut wages and/or working hours, or lay off staff. 

Towards more ‘flexible’ redundancy

For Macron and Philippe, not to mention Labour minister Muriel Pénicaud, ‘flexibility’ is above all about greasing redundancy procedures so that workers can be fired more easily. At present there are two main forms of contract for French workers and employees: the contrat à durée indéterminée (CDI) and the contrat à durée déterminée (CDD). The permanency offered by the CDI endows it with Rolls-Royce desirability; bank loans, tenancy agreements and all forms of credit are tied into its possession. The CDD, although time-bound, also comes with specific legally guaranteed protections. Much less secure is a third category, the contrat de chantier, which ends automatically with the completion of a project. Previously restricted to the building sector, this precarious mode of employment is set to be given much broader application, to the detriment of CDD contracts. Thus far the axe has not been applied to the permanency enshrined in the CDI, but the direction of travel is clear.   

Job security is further threatened by proposals to hack away at the protections offered by industrial tribunals, particularly in relation to unfair dismissal. The time threshold for contesting sackings will be cut from two years to one, and compensation payments are set for drastic reduction. Stripped of the power to judge cases on an individual basis, tribunal members will to be required to set damages according to a set scale with a fixed ceiling; for example, an employee of 30 years’ standing could expect more than the equivalent of 20 months’ salary if found to have been unfairly dismissed.    

Short-circuiting the unions

As the opening gambit of a projected full-spectrum assault on the power of French organised labour, the Macron package sets its sight on union organisation within the PME sector (petite et moyenne entreprise: small and medium businesses). Businesses employing fewer than 20 people will be empowered to negotiate with ‘representatives’ who are neither elected nor union-endorsed, while those with between 20 and 50 employees will be able to negotiate deals free of union involvement.  Cuts are projected for the number of union representatives and the time available for union work. From 2018, PME bosses will be able to hold referenda on projected agreements without union approval. In addition, union representatives will be required to fork out 20% of the costs of expert advice required for case work. 

Goodies have also been promised to enterprises with more than 50 employees: the current threshold above which a range of democratic entitlements and protections must be applied. Up till now, a company hiring its 50th employee has had to comply with a range of requirements, including the nomination of workers’ representatives, the setting up of a works council, and the establishment of a health and safety committee.  Macron’s big idea is to fold these into a single structure: a ‘social and economic council’, or CSE. The spin that this ‘simplified’ structure will operate more effectively has few takers in union circles, where the move has been correctly identified as a means to cut union representation and influence.