The result of legislative elections in France in June will be crucial to the success of President Emmanuel Macron’s raft of structural reforms which represent one of the pillars of his political programme. His hopes are pinned on his fledgling maverick centrist movement emerging with a parliamentary majority, or at the very least that a political majority in favour of his reforms will be returned, in order to introduce legislation for a pro-business reform of the labour market by autumn at the latest.
Current opinion poll findings of voting intentions ahead of the elections are encouraging for Macron, and he appears likely to succeed in reaching approval from the new parliament for the labour law reforms which will be presented before it in the form of executive decrees. But reaching approval from the trades unions is far less certain, and the prospect of social strife when France returns from summer holidays, as well as a resulting paralysis of the economy, is very real.
The planned reforms have unsurprisingly been met with approval from employers’ representatives, but it is the outcome of discussions that began this week with the unions that will be essential to avoiding costly conflict.
During his election campaign, Macron was quite clear about what his labour law reforms would contain, and the fact that he intended to go about them swiftly once in office. The loosening up of the labour market is to include moving negotiations on pay and working conditions from the current national industry-level of collective bargaining to individual company agreements, placing a cap on financial compensation awarded to employees by industrial tribunals (for example over unjustified sackings), and a major shakeup of the unemployment benefits system.
In an interview published last Sunday in the weekly Journal du dimanche (JDD) Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced that the reforms were a priority. “It is a major reform,” he said. “A good reform is a reform well thought-out, properly discussed, and then well executed. The labour law reform has been well thought-out. We are now going to discuss it in order to enrich it and explain it.” Philippe added that once the consultations with France’s trades unions were completed, the enactment of the reform would have to happen quickly because, he said, “our country must advance”.
In chorus the following day, economy minister Bruno Le Maire, speaking from Berlin where he met with his German counterpart Wolfgang Schäuble, insisted that France was about to begin the structural reforms so often urged by Germany and the European Commission, and including the freeing-up of the labour laws.
On the frontline is new labour minister Muriel Pénicaud, a former human resources director with food-sector giant Danone and aerospace and defence firm Dassault Systems. Under governments of both the Left and Right she has held senior posts in several public agencies dedicated to labour relations and professional training. Between 2015 and her appointment this month as labour minister, she led Business France, a state-sponsored organization to promote French medium-sized businesses on the international markets.
President Macron has made three key appointments to the government team to steer the labour reforms through the political and social minefield. Their backgrounds are diverse, and mostly anchored on the Right.
One is Pierre-André Imbert, 47, who has been made social affairs advisor to Macron. A former economics professor at Paris-I University, he has occupied a series of posts with the Left, as an advisor to late Socialist Party leftwinger Henri Emmanuelli when the latter headed the parliamentary finance commission, then as a senior advisor to Michel Sapin, François Hollande’s first labour minister. Imbert remained at the ministry after Sapin was appointed finance minister in 2014, becoming chief-of-staff to Sapin’s successors François Rebsamen and Myriam El Khomri, who was responsible for Hollande’s own labour law reforms that met with strong opposition from both unions and from the leftwing of Hollande’s Socialist Party. Imbert co-authored a book by leftwing economists (and notably Liem Hoang-Ngoc, now aligned with radical-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon) called Contre la dictature des marchés (Against the dictatorship of the markets), edited by alter-globalisation movement ATTAC.
But he has also served as a consultant for business consultancy firm Altedia, specialized in human resources management, and later as deputy managing director of the company’s successor Alixio, both owned by Raymond Soubie, who acted as a social affairs advisor to successive rightwing governments, latterly that of Nicolas Sarkozy.
Above all, Imbert is best known for his contribution to socialist former labour minister Myriam El Khomri’s reform of the labour market, the legislative texts of which are regarded by a number of political observers as being essentially his own work, redacted under the guidance of then-prime minister Manuel Valls and notably his economy minister Emmanuel Macron, who served in the post from 2014 until resigning to run for the presidency in August last year. That view is held by one of El Khomri’s former advisors, Pierre Jacquemain, which he detailed in his essay Ils ont tué la gauche (They killed the Left) published last year. In it, Jacquemain accuses El Khomri of allowing herself to be dominated by Imbert who he said was the major architect of the controversial reforms. In his new role under a new president intent on sweeping structural reforms, Imbert now has the political space to ‘finish’ the job.
Imbert’s appointment is in parallel to that of Antoine Foucher as chief-of-staff to labour minister Muriel Pénicaud. Foucher has a reputation as a hard-working expert on social affairs, at the service of the business world. Between 2015 and 2016 he was deputy managing director of the French employers’ federation, the MEDEF, (which he began working for in 2012) in charge of social relations. Before that, in 2011, he was an advisor to labour minister Xavier Bertrand in the conservative government of Nicolas Sarkozy. Before taking up his new post in government, he briefly worked for energy management firm Schneider Electric.
Although his professional path has been anchored on the Right, Foucher gained a reputation during his time at the MEDEF as a moderate and conciliatory figure in his relations with unions and staff representatives, situated in the so-called "reformist" camp of the federation, from which he resigned in June 2016 after conflict with the hardline rightwing head Pierre Gattaz and his deputy Thibault Lanxade. Foucher notably voiced his dissent over the handling in the spring of 2016 of the MEDEF’s failed negotiations with union leaders – who he describes as “business partners” – over reforming the unemployment benefits system.
Foucher’s arrival at the labour ministry is, despite his association with the employers’ federation, unlikely to prompt antagonism with trades unions. “We know we’re going to have disagreements, but at least we’re beginning on a basis of respect, at least that’s something,” commented one union official cited by pro-business daily L’Opinion.
The third key background figure of the reforms is Franck Morel, appointed as advisor in charge of the labour law reforms to the prime minister’s office. A lawyer specialized in employment legislation, Morel has previously served as an advisor to four labour ministers, including the conservative Xavier Bertrand, whom he notably helped with the preparation in 2008 of the law of “Modernisation of the labour market”. One week before his appointment as advisor to Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, daily Le Monde published an opinion article by Morel which had all the appearance of being a roadmap for Macron’s planned reforms. In it, he urged the newly-elected president to demonstrate “a just respect of social democracy” and to act with a “subtle alchemy between strong political will and proper negotiating consultation”.
In an interview with financial daily Les Échos in early 2016, he said that it was “desirable” that collective bargaining over pay and working conditions between unions and employers should be held at company-level rather than the current national sector-by-sector negotiations. In another interview with Les Echos later last year, Morel spoke in favour of lengthening weekly minimum working hours. In a book co-authored with French economist Bertrand Martinot, and edited by the Institut Montaigne think tank, a promoter of liberal economic views, the current labour laws were dismissed as “ineffective”, “complex” and “obese”.
It was hardly surprising that the MEDEF has voiced its approval of the new appointments. In an interview this Monday with radio station France Inter, MEDEF vice-president Thibault Lanxade gave barely-disguised support for candidates of Macron’s République En Marche (Republic on the move) party in the legislative elections in June. Lanxade said he hoped that there would be “a majority so that the decrees can be voted through”, adding: “Companies are waiting. Things must be done so that it [labour law reform] can be effective as early as possible because growth is here and now we can benefit from this dynamic revival with a more flexible, more supple, labour law.”
It was no less surprising that the CGT, one of France’s biggest cross-trades unions, has been hostile to the announced reforms. Its leader, Philippe Martinez, has said that “labour law reform is not a priority” and that the executive decrees that Macron intends using “are unacceptable”. Laurent Berger, head of the CGT’s rival union, the CFDT, also cautioned the government from rushing through the labour reform. More conciliatory, Jean-Claude Mailly, leader of the third-largest trades union, FO, told France Inter that the appointment of Antoine Foucher as being “not bad”, adding that the latter “likes discussion”. Mailly told Les Echos that he had had “very good feedback” about new labour minister Muriel Pénicaud and that “to legislate by decree is not a problem […] if one agrees on its contents”, citing the example of the introduction, by decree in 1981, of an extra fifth week of paid holidays per year for all French employees. He added that he nevertheless demanded that there be “a proper consultation on the substance, with the necessary time” and that these be held with “proper margins for discussion”. The reality of that is about to unfold.
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The French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Graham Tearse