The French prime minister Manuel Valls has opened the way to the erosion – but not the abolition – of the country’s 35-hour working week, reports The Independent.
“Exceptions” to the 35-hour rule should no longer be seen as a “transgression”, Mr Valls said after receiving a long-awaited report on reform of France’s Kafkaesque employment laws.
The report, drawn up by a former justice minister Robert Badinter, calls for the rewriting and simplificaton of the Code du Travail or “labour code”, which runs to nine volumes and over 3,000 pages.
The report, which will form the basis of a draft law in March, makes no direct attack on workers’ rights, like permanent employment contracts, the minimum wage and the 35-hour week introduced by a Socialist government 16 years ago.
It calls, however, for more flexibility and the possibility of more, local union-employer agreements to circumvent rules, including the 35-hour week.