CHAPTER NINE

Making a living

I do not believe that it is the role of politics to promise happiness. The French people are not that easily taken in. They know very well that politics cannot achieve everything, that politics does not have the means to solve all problems, to govern everything, or to make everything better. Rather than focusing on a notional pursuit of happiness, it is my conviction that politics must deploy a framework that will enable every man and woman to find their way, to become masters of their own destiny and to exercise their freedom — to be able to choose how they live their lives. It is with this promise of emancipation that politics must engage. However, in order to be able to choose how we live our lives, we first need to be able to make a living.

Because it is by working that we can earn a living, educate our children, enjoy life, acquire knowledge, and forge ties with others. It is work, too, that enables us to rise above our situation and to carve out a place for ourselves in society. I therefore cannot believe those who predict the “end of work”.

The de facto reservation of jobs for the most productive, writing off one section of the population as economically “useless”, has always seemed to me to be a resounding failure to fulfil the finest promise made by the Republic — the emancipation of one and all. That is why I am convinced that the fight against unemployment must remain our priority. And the example set by our partners who have achieved success, starting with Germany, shows that this is not fated to be a losing battle. Solutions exist, but we need courage to apply them.

I do not believe that “full employment” alone will be enough to restore confidence in the nation. Examples from the United Kingdom or the United States, where that goal was reached, bear witness: Brexit and the accession to power of Donald Trump are symptoms of the distress that societies undergo when they give up on equality.

We need to provide jobs for all, and ensure that each job comes with proper remuneration and prospects. Where do we stand today regarding this promise?

Our employment market is unhealthy at all levels. A high rate of unemployment has become entrenched. It impacts one person in ten of working age, one young person in four, and, in certain problematic districts, one person in two. Entire swathes of the country have been excluded from employment, which feeds into feelings of despair and anger in those who live there, and creates both a fertile breeding ground for Islamic radicalisation and votes in favour of the National Front.

These concerns pervade society. From childhood, we are beleaguered by the wrong choices that we make — in our studies, our jobs, or the industry we work in — and any of these factors can derail us. Even those who are employed are not necessarily secure. Alongside those who hold secure permanent contracts, there are millions of people condemned to constant instability: 70 per cent of employees are hired under short-term contracts — of less than one month in duration — and are then often rehired by the same company. There are also all those who can no longer manage to make ends meet, such as the vast numbers of farmworkers or those reduced to part-time work — who are, for the most part, women.

Our country needs rules that enable everyone to make a living. Unfortunately, our current regulations, conceived at the end of the Second World War, fail to meet contemporary challenges.

They favour “insiders”, those who have jobs and better protection than others, at the expense of “outsiders” — the youngest, the least qualified, the most vulnerable. This is what has made our social model both unjust and inefficient: it favours rules, and paralyses social mobility.

I want, first of all, to ensure that everyone can find a place in the job market, whatever their scholastic trajectory. Today, there are two million young people without employment or qualifications, as well as millions of unqualified or barely qualified workers.

We must give these people access to jobs without compromising on the importance of obtaining qualifications. So we should make apprenticeship systematic for all vocational training up to high-school certificate level, focus resources on lower-level qualifications, and place more emphasis on specific occupational sectors to allow people to train for the jobs they have chosen to go into.

In many sectors, including the construction industry, qualifications are essential, and we must recognise their importance. However, they sometimes exclude the most vulnerable and the least qualified by preventing them from setting up their own business and becoming self-employed. Whereas, in fact, for some people it is easier to find a customer than an employer. For anyone living in Stains in the Paris suburbs or Villeurbanne on the outskirts of Lyon, it is far easier to set up on one’s own and look for customers than to get a job interview. To prevent such people from creating their own company by establishing minimum qualification requirements is to condemn them, whether young or not so young, to unemployment.

In this regard, I think of Michel, a man I met in Colmar. At fifty years of age, after spending thirty years in a car-body shop without having a vocational qualification (the Certificate of Professional Aptitude), he could no longer find work. He was too old. And on top of that, he was prohibited from establishing his own company! Did he have the means, or even the time, to obtain the required Certificate? No. As a result, he was condemned to long-term unemployment.

The primary obstacle preventing young people, particularly the less qualified, from finding employment is the cost of labour. I do not believe that the creation of a minimum wage for young people is the best way to address the problem, which must be confronted rationally. This is why apprenticeships need to be supported. Apprentices receive a lower salary, but benefit from qualifying training that will later enable them to be integrated into the workforce. For this reason, I hope to make the requirements for apprenticeship more flexible, by relaxing governance of the system and allowing those in the relevant occupational sectors to have more say in defining training programs.

Apart from the cost of labour already mentioned, there are costs involved in dismissing an employee. Cases brought before labour-relations boards are currently protracted, complex, and lack transparency. Large companies that have the staying power to handle the system, and the battery of lawyers needed to unravel its complexity, do not suffer. It is the salaried employees with little training who, after losing their jobs and waiting for months, sometimes years, to reach the outcome of the proceedings and to be paid compensation, pay the price. Victims also include small-business owners with one or two employees who, while waiting for a court judgment, refrain from hiring more workers. This is why I have been fighting to reform labour-relations boards, and will continue to do so. It is another reason why I will implement maximum and minimum thresholds for damages awarded in such situations.

At the same time, we must protect the standard of living of our workforce. This goes beyond the question of purchasing power. It is a matter of dignity and respect. How can we accept the way in which large numbers of farmers now have to live? How can we accept the fact that so many employees feel that they are very poorly paid for their work? I believe that promises of uncontrolled salary increases across the board made from on high are harmful: they penalise our companies, and ultimately the employees, and they generate unemployment.

We have a crucial battle ahead to increase purchasing power. It is truly unacceptable that the social protections that benefit everyone are based primarily on income from employment. This is one of the reasons why so many of our compatriots are surprised to see companies complaining of the high “cost of labour” when they themselves have the feeling that they are being inadequately remunerated for their efforts.

This is why I am proposing to reduce employee contributions and those paid by the self-employed. This will enable us to markedly raise net salaries, without adding to labour costs, harming competitiveness, or endangering jobs. We will finance this measure in such a way that workers will be the winners.

Regarding the most disadvantaged, benefit reforms will also be necessary. They should be withdrawn less rapidly when the employee returns to work — our objective should be to encourage a return to the labour market and to support the income of the poorest. Instead, we are doing the exact opposite!

Fighting for everyone to be able to make a living also enables economic actors to contend with changes that the legislator cannot always foresee. It is unthinkable that we could govern agriculture, luxury goods, artisanal products, and communications in the same way. Nevertheless, in labour matters, we continue to administer everything through legislation.

More than ever, we need to be agile and flexible at all levels: that means reorganising our Labour Code.

To succeed in a knowledge economy driven by speed and innovation, organisations must be able to adapt constantly. If heads of companies fear that this may not be possible, they will shy away from taking on employees — or will not take on enough of them. To offer employees the best possible social contract, in accordance with the economic climate and the requirements of the sector, more possibilities for negotiation and dialogue must be opened up.

Sadly, the rules that we have in this regard in France are too numerous and too inflexible, and, because they are stipulated by the law, they cut across all types of companies and all types of business sectors, indiscriminately. This makes no sense.

We have seen the consequences of such an approach with the 35-hour week. Will those who today argue that we should move from a 35-hour week to a 39-hour week explain to the French people that they will have to work four more hours without being properly paid? That, too, will make no sense. For certain companies, the 35-hour week meets their needs perfectly. For others, it is not the case: they need management and labour to be willing to work together as partners — for longer hours (for example, to fill orders), or for fewer hours (for example, to avoid dismissals).

In situations where the law permits it, notably in large vehicle or shipbuilding companies, slightly longer working weeks have enabled thousands of jobs to be saved. The same trade unions that were blocking negotiations at national level, and were ideologically opposed to this type of reform, then approved an agreement at the company level. As minister, I went to Saint-Nazaire to sign orders for the construction of a new liner, where eighteen months earlier the company was about to close. It survived, thanks to the collective intelligence of the management and employees, who together were able to reach an agreement providing for partial unemployment for many months. Thanks to that agreement and with the support of the state as a shareholder, it proved possible to save the company and for it to rapidly resume activity when the first new orders were received. It now has advance orders for more than ten years, which is unprecedented. This just shows that nothing is ever pre-ordained.

By the same token, a reform that takes into account how onerous a job is, even if such a reform is a good thing in principle, cannot be applied across the board in the same manner. For a large automobile group, the reform does not create a problem, and represents real progress for employees. For a very small construction company or a bakery, it is almost impossible to implement. It will only serve to complicate life for business owners, and will weigh heavily on their ability to take on staff.

We therefore have to abandon the idea that the law can make provision for all eventualities — for everyone, in every situation.

I favour a profound change in the way in which our labour laws are constructed — so that the law is able to accommodate exceptions, through bargaining by business-sector and individual-company agreements passed by majority decision, on any matter.

Let us acknowledge that the Labour Code should define the overarching principles on which we are not willing to compromise, such as gender equality, working hours, and minimum salary. And then let us entrust to industry-level collective bargaining, and, in the alternative, specific company bargaining, the responsibility for ensuring a fair balance and appropriate protection.

In this way, we will be able to simplify matters at a grassroots level, while putting our faith in the intelligence of the parties involved. Today, we recognise that citizens can express themselves legitimately on any subject by using their vote. Why should we think that they might not be qualified to decide on matters that concern their daily lives?

I do not believe for a moment that we can create tomorrow’s prosperity by unilaterally reducing the rights of all employees. But nor do I believe that we can succeed in a globalised world with rules that are inflexible and sometimes totally inappropriate.

I am not unaware of the fears that this approach might engender. In the French system, contrary to those of Germany and Scandinavia, there has been little familiarity with this method of discussion, negotiation, and compromise. Our trade unions are sometimes too weak; sometimes, not sufficiently representative. Nevertheless, social dialogue is not a luxury. It is at the heart of the approach that I am proposing. Not the social dialogue practised at a national level in recent years, but rather a pragmatic dialogue, at the level of the business sector and the company. This requires us to draw the conclusion that we must reaffirm the legitimacy of trade unions, and provide them with negotiating tools. To support this development, we will therefore introduce an uncomplicated financing mechanism through which employees can direct resources made available by their company toward the trade union of their choice.

Finally, if we want everyone to be able to make a living in an innovation economy, people should have access to high-quality training throughout their lives.

Companies and even entire business sectors are being dismantled at ever-increasing speed: this should not be tantamount to condemning those employed there either to unemployment or to insecurity. Because, at the same time, new professions, new opportunities, and new jobs are constantly becoming available — and we must allow everyone, whatever their career path, to take advantage of them. It is no longer practicable to know at the age of twenty what we will do at the age of fifty. In order for work to provide a means of emancipation, we must propose a revised approach to continuing education. People can no longer be trained once, at the age of twenty, for their entire lives.

We cannot promise job security in a world that is subject to constant change — a world where technological developments are making some occupations obsolete while creating others. We cannot promise that every job will always be interesting and productive, because that was never the case. Those who make this claim are the hypocrites from whom we have inherited today’s society.

However, there are two things that we can guarantee: people will be able to move from one occupation to another, and they will be protected if they lose their employment. For it is at times of great change that we owe the most to solidarity — to enable us to turn the corner.

Workers spend less and less of their careers in the same company or in the same business sector. We will therefore have an increasing need for time during our lives to acquire new qualifications.

Continuing education is not designed for that. In France, more than thirty billion euros are spent annually on vocational training. Nevertheless, here too it is the most vulnerable who have the greatest difficulty in gaining access to training. Our system is too complicated. To obtain funding for training, a person may not know whether to contact a benefit agency, a regional authority, or the National Employment Agency. All the steps required can take up to a year, and many abandon the process before they complete it. In addition, the service rendered is not always up to standard. And it is principally reserved for those who have stable employment and are already well trained.

Here, too, we must initiate a real revolution — by offering everyone a program of personalised support, and an evaluation of professional and personal competencies as well as aptitudes and motivations, matched on the side of beneficiaries by a serious commitment and regular attendance. We then have to offer a large assortment of options, ranging from a short training course of a few weeks to master a key technique, to a longer course of a year or two — at a university, for example — for those aiming to make a complete career change.

To achieve this, the system will need to be more transparent, equipped with an effective method of assessment and the publication of results, in terms of the numbers who return to work and their salary advancement. Most importantly, all workers must be able to benefit from training resources and have direct contact with training providers, without go-betweens.

Such training must also be available to employees who have a position, but who suffer from a lack of prospects and from working conditions that have deteriorated. That is why we must make rights to unemployment insurance available to support training and retraining efforts for those who resign from their jobs. In this respect, unemployment insurance will change its nature. It will no longer be a question of insurance as such, but rather a way for career change and training to be financed by the authorities — the establishment of a universal right to professional mobility.

Unemployment insurance must also be accessible equally to the self-employed, to small-business owners, and to artisans, especially at a time when the difference between salaried employees and the self-employed is becoming blurred in the new service economy. The self-employed are often more exposed to risks and disruptions in their business. They are, at the same time, the least protected by our system. This is a cruel paradox that we must absolutely reject.

On the other hand, I am firmly against the debate launched by a number of political leaders regarding a sliding-scale approach to unemployment benefits: removing so many euros or so many months from existing entitlements. By focusing the argument this way, they imply that changes are irrelevant, that professional mobility will be achieved by itself, and that unemployment is more or less the fault of the unemployed. I believe, on the contrary, that massive public investment is necessary — but that it should be earmarked to serve training and qualifications, on condition that all parties involved assume responsibility for monitoring regular attendance and for the assessment of vocational training.

This revolution does not, however, imply a move to statism. The state must finance this training — as it already does, but without really making decisions — and guarantee that it functions properly. However, it should largely delegate skills assessment to private service-providers, as it has begun doing already. It should delegate training programs to regional authorities, professional associations, universities, schools, and vocational-training centers. The state will be in charge of evaluating them. In return, we will step up monitoring and requirements for job-seeking and training, so as to ensure the proper use of these funds. What I want is a system that is exacting with regard to rights and obligations. The equation is clear: after a certain period of unemployment, whoever has not completed training will not receive benefits. Nor will benefits be payable to anyone who has completed training and does not accept a reasonable offer of employment. This is the only way of ensuring that the money is spent fairly and effectively, and it will leverage significant savings.

However, when choosing how we are going to live, making a living is not enough. That promise cannot stand on its own. It must be supported by a complete revision of our social-protection system, emanating from a basic idea: doing more for those who have less.