France is one of the industrialized countries with the lowest level of unionization, and the unions are divided, particularly at political level. Nevertheless, their influence is considerable and they play a far more important political and social role than the low number of cardholders would seem to indicate.
The first trade union ‘confederation’ was the CGT (Confédération Générale du Travail), launched in 1895. Since then, unions have become embedded in the institutional framework as a ‘social partner’ to employers’ associations and government, and they are one of the main channels for the resolution of conflicts in society. The right to belong to a union is written into the Preamble to the French Constitution, as is the right to strike. It is a long way from the past: during the nineteenth century, attempts to form workers’ associations were severely repressed, and it was only after a long struggle that limited rights to form associations were won in 1864, and full rights recognized in 1884. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the CGT was the only ‘confederation’ (except the far smaller Christian CFTC), but it divided after the break-up between Communists and Socialists in 1920. In 1936, the two CGTs re-merged, but in 1947, with the Cold War starting, a strong minority split up to form the social democratic CGT-FO (later the FO, the Force Ouvrière) supported and funded at first by the United States, with the CGT increasingly under Communist influence. This was not the only split. In 1964, a majority of the CFTC, now a large ‘confederation’, decided to shed the religious dimension of the union, and became the CFDT (Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail), with a minority continuing the CFTC. Therefore, there are four main ‘confederations’: CGT, CFDT, FO and CFTC. But if that is not complicated enough, there is also a ‘confederation’ for middle management, the CGC (Confédération Générale des Cadres), and a number of independent, professionally based unions, for instance in education (FEN and FSU), in the police, etc.
This fragmentation appears disastrous, given that less than 8 per cent of the workforce hold a union card. Some sectors are well unionized (such as education and public transport), but others have only a residual membership (like trade and tourism). Membership has fallen steadily since the 1970s, as traditionally unionized industries suffered from the economic crisis, and the sociopolitical climate of France changed. Resort to strike action has become less frequent: between 3 million and 5 million work days were lost through strike in the 1970s every year, under 1 million since the late 1980s, and just under half a million in 1994. However, some national conflicts, such as those which occurred at the end of 1996 in protest against social security reforms and threats to public sector employment, still attract strong support.
The main ‘confederations’ also achieve much power and influence through organismes paritaires (public bodies managed by both employers and employees), such as social security funds, the participation in many consultative bodies, and official recognition of sectorial agreements, obtained through collective bargaining. Elected shop stewards and union representatives are protected by law and have paid time off work for union business, as the elected members of consultative workers’ councils (comités d’entreprise). Nevertheless, all these institutional arrangements cannot hide the gradual disaffection of employees, although periodic crises show that unions still have an important role to play in the French sociopolitical framework.
FRANÇOIS NECTOUX
See also: economy; parties and movements; social policy
Rand Smith, W.R. (1987) Crisis in the French Labour Movement, London: Macmillan (this presents an interesting analysis of long-term causes of disaffection with unions).
Szarka, J. (1992) Business in France: An Introduction to the Economic and Social Context, London: Pitman (Chapter 6 assesses industrial relations and the role of trade unions).
Entrusted with the dual role of teaching and research, and cast as the agents of mass state higher education in France, the universities are open to all holders of the baccalauréat, or an equivalent qualification, and charge only minimal registration fees. They are the providers in higher education terms of the ‘free state education’ which is guaranteed at all levels as a basic human right by the constitution. Government policy and increasing demand has meant that these institutions have been asked to expand dramatically, both in number and in size, since the 1960s: in 1995–6 they were struggling to cope with over 1.5 million registered students. Since funding and staffing have failed to keep pace with such increases, considerable strains have been imposed on the system, and a constant series of reforms has been tried in an endeavour to alleviate them. For its part, the student body, in the spirit of May 1968, has been active and vocal in its denunciation of inadequate study conditions and state neglect.
Universities in France boast a proud tradition, stretching back to medieval times when Paris (1211), Toulouse (1229) and Montpellier (1289) were among the earliest and most prestigious institutions in Europe. Since World War II, however, they have been propelled into the role of purveyors of mass higher education.
To all intents and purposes, the universities in their modern form date from the legislation which came out of the events of May 1968. The loi d’orientation sur l’enseignement supérieur (Higher Education Reform Act), passed later that year, abolished the seventeen existing university groupings, founded for the most part at the end of the nineteenth century on the basis of no more than one per academic out of the remaining imperial faculties. In their place, more than seventy new pluridisciplinary institutions were created, with greater autonomy (especially financial and administrative) and governed by bodies which guaranteed a voice to all categories of staff and students. Divided no longer into faculties, but into self-administering Unités d’Enseignement et de Recherche (UER), these new universities were designed to break down traditional academic barriers and overcome vested interests. Degree programmes were organized into three successive tiers (cycles), of which the first two lasted for two years; the third was more open-ended. The first tier was conceived as a broadly based introduction to an area of study and to working methods, and led to the award of the Diplôme d’Études Universitaires Générales (DEUG). The second tier developed more specialized study, and led to a first degree (licence) after one year and a Master’s (maîtrise), including some initiation to research method, after a second year. The third tier covered high specialization and doctoral research. Universities were given some control over the design of their curricula, but only within agreed limits, imposed to protect the national character of the awards. Teaching was dispensed via lectures, seminars or practical classes, as appropriate, in units of about ninety minutes per week (unités de valeur—UV).
These structures are still broadly speaking in place, despite some changes in emphasis and terminology introduced by subsequent reforms. In 1984, the UER were redesignated UFR (Unités de Formation et de Recherche), in keeping with the emphasis on career preparation in the Savary act, and in 1992 the units were replaced, theoretically, by more broadly based modules, to introduce measures of compensation between individual course units. However, despite its apparent centrally inspired uniformity, in practice the system remains somewhat diverse; since being granted autonomy, some universities have in the past used it to delay, even to avoid applying, the various reforms urged upon them by government. In administrative terms, however, they come within the direct purview of the education ministry, which controls staff appointments, pays salaries (generally speaking, all permanent teachers are civil servants), sanctions the national diplomas the institutions are entitled to award, and provides the majority of their recurrent funding. These matters are incorporated in the four-year contracts signed with the ministry. In addition, the Recteur d’Académie acts as chancellor of the universities within his or her administrative district.
Reforms over the last twenty years have been dominated by two overriding concerns: the need to combat the high failure rate, in the the first cycle in particular, and the desire to make syllabuses and qualifications more relevant to subsequent employment.
The first of these concerns derives from figures which suggest that up to 40 per cent of university entrants fail to achieve even the firstlevel qualification, the DEUG. With selective entry having been repeatedly ruled out, various alternative formulae have been tried, often with some short-term success, within the limits of the resources available: better briefing on courses and careers before registration; reformed programmes which introduce greater measures of subject and career counselling and possibilities of change of direction early in the course; the employment of senior students to act as ‘tutors’ to newcomers; the creation of antennes (outposts) in local towns, where the transition between the more protective environment of the lycée and the disorientating, impersonal campus might be made more easily by those without university experience in the family.
The second preoccupation is linked to the first, in so far as clear definition of career possibilities is perceived as enhancing motivation, and thereby reducing failure. It has repeatedly been stated that the extended programmes of university study are too long and too abstract for a significant (and increasing) proportion of those embarking upon them. Hence, major attempts have been made to adapt. Firstly this has involved the development of shorter, professionally orientated alternatives, both inside and outside the universities, whether it be twoyear intensive courses in technical subjects leading to a Diplôme Universitaire de Technologie, in the Instituts Universitaires de Technologic or expansion of advanced post-baccalauréat technical education at the lycée (Sections de Techniciens Supérieurs). More significantly, perhaps, professionally orientated diplomas have been introduced into the second and third cycles. These range from the specialist commercial qualification, the Maîtrise de Sciences de Gestion, first introduced in 1970, to the diploma of ingénieur-maître awarded by the Instituts Universitaires Professionalises established by Lionel Jospin in 1991. What these prestigious programmes have in common, however—apart, that is, from purporting to be in the mould of the grandes écoles, with input from industrialists and compulsory practical placements—is the fact that they select the best applicants from among those already embarked upon higher education. By virtue of the selective process, they do not of course recruit the intellectually weaker students, who are therefore obliged to fall back upon nonselective, traditional abstract studies to which they are least suited. In this way, such developments have, ironically, helped to defeat the objective of adapting the universities’ offering to a more diverse audience.
Given the government’s aim of ensuring that 80 per cent of the age group achieve the baccalauréat by the year 2000, with consequent effects upon demand for university places, the problems of the university system seem destined to last well into the twenty-first century— especially in a climate of government austerity policies designed to cut public spending.
RON HALLMARK
See also: education, secondary: collèges, lycées, etc.; educational elitism; student revolt of 1986
Firth, K (1989) ‘French Universities: The Difficult Road to Reform’, Modern Languages 70, 1 (March) (this article reviews the problems at the beginning of Jospin’s term as minister).
Ministère de l’Éducation Nationale, de l’Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche (1996) Après le BAC: réussir ses études. Le guide des études supérieures 1996, Paris: Les Dossiers ONISEP (an up-to-date official guide to courses, choices, institutions and careers).
Vasconcellos, M. (1993) Le Système éducatif, Paris: Éditions La Découverte (includes a good chapter on higher education, viewed in critical perspective).
b. 1883, Paris;
d. 1955, Dax
Artist
Born in Montmartre, Utrillo is celebrated as the painter of Parisian street scenes. His life was disrupted by acute alcoholism, and his mother, the painter Suzanne Valadon, first encouraged him to paint to distract him from drinking. His work is also notorious because of the number of fakes which appeared on the market from 1918 onwards, with a whole flood in 1955, mainly in America.
DEBRA KELLY
See also: painting