Articles on France

Four Ways to Fire a Frenchman
By CRAIG S. SMITH

Paris

The French government wants to make it easy to fire young workers. Easier firing, easier hiring, the logic goes. Who wants to add people to the permanent payroll if it's painful and costly to undo a mistake?

The laws on "licensement," as firing in France is called, are complex enough to fill a book, but in the end there are essentially four ways for an employer to deliver a pink slip. All involve time or money or both, because employees who don't want to go quietly can file a complaint with the Conseil des Prud'hommes, the court that rules on terminations. CRAIG S. SMITH

1. PROVE YOU CAN'T AFFORD THE JOB

Dismissing a person for economic reasons is legal but complicated. A company must be able to prove in court that eliminating the position is necessary either because of economic woes or because it is essential to remain competitive.

Companies must also show that they can't transfer the employee to another job. If employers have more than one person in the same position, they must explain why they are firing Pierre instead of Jean-Paul. And an employer must show that the decision was made using purely objective criteria.

If the company has more than 50 employees and wants to fire more than 10, it must create a "social plan" that includes efforts to minimize dismissals and provide for job training or other support for employees who are cut.

"That is huge work," said Joël Grangé, a lawyer for the Paris firm Gide Loyrette Nouel who represents employers. If the judge doesn't consider the social plan adequate, he can demand that the employer reinstate the jobs.

In any case, employers must first summon the workers to a preliminary meeting to warn them that they may lose their jobs. Then they must send a registered letter telling a worker he is fired, listing the reasons and explaining the efforts that were made to find him another position in the company and detailing the support he will receive later on — usually a training program.

It's worth getting it right, because if the procedure is not followed and the employee has worked at the company for two years or more, he may be entitled to damages. "Clearly the litigation on this is more and more," Mr. Grangé said.

2. PROVE HE DID A BAD, BAD THING

"You can't just fire someone just because you don't like them," Mr. Grangé said. But you can fire him for doing a job badly. Again the company has to be able to prove in court that the grounds are real and serious, which can be difficult.

"For a salesman, for example, you have to demonstrate that his performance is not due to a bad product or market," Mr. Grangé said.

The employee will most likely counter that the reason isn't serious, and the courts are inclined to favor employees, he added.

"Judges ask for evidence that is very difficult to gather," he said, "They say, 'When you say he's a poor performer, are you sure it isn't due to a lack of organization in your company?' That's a very difficult thing to show."

3. PAY HIM TO SCRAM

Most cases brought by fired workers are settled out of court, but they include a hefty payment to avoid a trial, which can take years. Still, because settlements are exempt from taxes, it is usually in both the employer's and the employee's financial interest to go through that legal process rather than opt for the faster solution of paying the employee directly to resign. Settlements are usually calculated to include payment for a notice period, or the time between notification and actual termination, during which employees continue to draw a salary. For blue-collar workers, that is usually two or three months, but it can be as long as six months for white-collar workers. Settlements can also include several months' salary to pay for job training and include a severance payment that is determined by how long the employee has worked for the company and which industry he is in. Bank employees, for example, get at least one month's salary for every year they've worked.

Finally, there are damages, which can be just a few months' salary for a young person who has worked at a company less than two years but can be several years' salary for someone closer to retirement with many years at the company.

4. PUT HIM IN A CUPBOARD AND THROW AWAY THE KEY

Some managers with problem employees simply "put them in the cupboard," as the French saying goes, which usually means moving them out of the way and leaving them alone in hopes that they eventually quit.

"But putting them in a cupboard is a very expensive way to do it," Mr. Grangé said, because the employees continue to draw a salary as long as they show up and don't give the company cause to fire them. Mr. Grangé added that such a strategy also carries risks. If Sophie has been set aside with nothing to do, she can ask the court to declare that she has been effectively fired without due process and then can claim damages.

Can Thierry Breton Get France Working Again?
By ROGER COHEN
International Herald Tribune

The French government is onto something: It's no good having a country where people make more money by not working than by taking a job. That realization may just mean that France will stir from its lethargy.

Certainly, Thierry Breton, 50, the boyish French finance minister with a fine command of English and a taste for things American ("I love your country," he purred), is convinced that "France is about to move."

Over breakfast at the French Consulate here, Breton suggested that no less than "a second French Revolution" was under way, one that the government of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin would like to complete "under the radar screen."

That, in fact, is how most change is accomplished in France, where a left-leaning rhetoric of equality and solidarity has been de rigueur for decades, even as the country has moved steadily toward the European norm of an open market economy. Now, Breton wants to accelerate the market-oriented change by trashing, at last, the myth that a highly-regulated labor market preserves jobs.

Is he nuts to try this in strike-plagued France? "No," Breton said, "I am not a politician, so I do not have anything to lose." An executive and sometime best-selling writer of science fiction, whose restless career has taken him from the public to the private sector and from Europe to the United States, Breton imagines a France unbound.

With that in mind, he's ready to break taboos. "We had a strange situation," he said. "For some people the subsidies they could get, unemployment benefits and so on, were higher than if they came to work." During an hourlong conversation, he returned to this theme again and again, insisting that the principle must be re-established that "work pays, which has not been the case."

For a long time now, it has been clear that the problem of chronically high unemployment in France and Germany has been tied to the fact that a combination of long-term state handouts and tax-free work in the black economy was more attractive to many people than taking a job. But finding a politician ready to say that has been hard.

Breton said it not once but five times. He also outlined measures the government is taking to render work more attractive and accessible. These include one-time payments of 1,000, or $1,207, to workers taking first-time jobs in sectors including construction, tax relief for people moving more than 200 kilometers, or 124 miles, to take a job, and allowing companies of under 20 employees to hire and fire with ease.

"In France the rigidity has been so great that people hesitate to hire because they have to keep people they no longer need," Breton said. "So now, in a small company, you can hire and, if it does not work out, let them go overnight with no penalty, so long as this happens within the first two years."

This last measure, he added, had already led to 30,000 new work contracts in the past three months. Unemployment has fallen slightly in the same period, to 9.8 percent from over 10 percent.

That is still high, but with the presidential election looming in 20 months and Villepin an undeclared candidate, this government is in a hurry to produce results. Otherwise the prime minister would stand little chance in what would be his first bid to get elected to political office.

"We think there are 500,000 jobs on offer in France that we have been unable to fill," Breton said. "With the new flexibility and incentives, that should change."

Of course, the political season is only just beginning again in France after the summer break and when labor unions catch on to what is going on "under the radar screen," the reaction could be harsh.

But already the broad lines of the government's approach to economic reform seem clear. Pander to national sentiment and notions of French exceptionality with talk of "economic patriotism" and assurances that globalization is not part of France's destiny, while pushing through fiercely pragmatic market reforms under that smoke screen.

Among the reforms Breton is pushing is a revision of the tax code that will cap the top income tax rate at 40 percent (down from 48 percent), reduce the number of tax brackets, and neutralize France's wealth tax ("It has done a lot of damage to our economy") by declaring that nobody pay more than 60 percent of his or her revenue in taxes. Abolishing the wealth tax was too politically sensitive, but this measure should curb its worst excesses.

Doing all this while keeping the French budget deficit under control, and beginning to tackle the long-term problem of spiraling debt, will not be easy, Breton acknowledged.

The tax cuts, which still require parliamentary approval, will not kick in until 2007, allowing resources to be focused on unemployment next year. Meanwhile, nonstrategic assets like the highways are up for sale, and Breton said 30 billion would be raised from privatizations this year.

Will the French go along with this ambitious reform program that declines to speak its name? Breton, an engineer by training, believes he has "all the vectors" lined up for success. The French, he thinks, have grasped that they cannot go on living beyond their means. They have understood that they must "work more to pay for our social protection system."

I think Breton might be onto something. France is never quite what it appears. It blew off a lot of national steam by voting "No" to the European constitution, a supposed blow to "neoliberal" economics that was in fact just the opposite.

Now, having got through that thrilling little catharsis, the country may be ready to get down to the business of running a successful global economy with more flexibility and lower unemployment. If he can restrain his penchant for irrational exuberance, Villepin's attempt at a quiet revolution may get him closer to the Élysée Palace.

E-mail: rcohen@iht.com

Tomorrow: Alan Riding examines the evolution of celebrity life.

E-mail: rcohen@iht.com

France Races to Oust Illegal Immigrants

By ELAINE GANLEY

Associated Press Writer

6:11 AM CDT, September 22, 2007

PARIS

A Russian boy suffers head injuries after falling from a window while trying to elude police. A North African man slips from a window ledge and fractures his leg while fleeing officers. A Chinese woman lies in a coma after plunging from a window during a police check.

As France races to deport 25,000 illegal immigrants by the end of the year -- a quota set by President Nicolas Sarkozy -- tensions are mounting and the crackdown is taking a toll.

Critics say the hunt threatens values in a nation that prides itself on being a cradle of human rights and a land of asylum. Protesters have gathered by the dozens in Paris to protect illegal aliens as police move in.

But with three months left in the year, police have caught at least 11,800 immigrants, less than half the target, so Sarkozy has ordered officials to pick up the pace.

"I want numbers," Sarkozy reportedly told Brice Hortefeux, head of the Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Co-Development, which Sarkozy set up after taking office in May. "This is a campaign commitment. The French expect (action) on this."

There are no solid estimates of the number of illegal aliens in France. The Immigration Ministry puts it at 200,000 to 400,000, many from former colonies in Africa. France has a population of some 63 million.

The president, who cultivated a tough-on-crime image while serving as Interior Minister, says France needs a new kind of immigrant -- one who is "selected, not endured."

His government is fast-tracking tighter immigration legislation. Parliament's lower house on Thursday approved a bill that would allow consular officers to request DNA samples from immigrants trying to join relatives in France. Even some Cabinet ministers dislike the measure, which critics say betrays France's humanitarian values.

The DNA tests would be voluntary and proponents say such testing, which would get a trial run until 2010, would speed visa processing and give immigrants a way to bolster their applications.

Immigration legislation under consideration also aims to ensure that immigrants joining family members here speak French and grasp French values -- to be proven with tests.

In a nationally televized interview Thursday, Sarkozy went further, saying he wants France to adopt immigration quotas by regions of the world and by occupation.

"I want us to be able to establish each year, after a debate in parliament, a quota with a ceiling for the number of foreigners we accept on our territory," he said.

European countries to the south, like Italy or Spain, face a greater challenge from illegal immigration than France -- but neither has set themselves targets for throwing aliens out.

In the Netherlands, the first act of the new parliament elected in November 2006 was to halt deportations set in motion by the previous government.

Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende's new government declared an amnesty for up to 30,000 people. New asylum seekers and illegal immigrants still face a tough regime, kept in camps while their cases are handled. Even legal immigrants must pass language tests before coming and take citizenship classes in order to remain.

Meanwhile, resistance to France's crackdown has built among human rights groups, politicians of the opposition left, and even police. Injuries of foreigners during the past two months have also mobilized critics.

The 12-year-old Russian boy, who was fleeing with his illegal alien father in the northern town of Amiens, has been hospitalized with serious head injuries since early August. The North African man in the southern town of Roussillon suffered double fractures to his leg. The Chinese woman fell from an apartment in Paris on Thursday when police investigating a theft complaint turned up to carry out a check.

"Neighborhood groups are forming," said Pierre Willem of the UNSA police union. "Reactions are becoming more and more violent."

Some police officers worry they will get caught in the numbers hunt -- accused of racism for making arrests on the basis of skin color or other illegal criteria.

Even unions representing Air France employees are protesting, saying the flagship carrier's image is suffering because the government uses it to return illegal aliens, sometimes bound hand and foot, on flights occasionally marked by violent incidents.

"It's not our mission to be police auxiliaries," said Leon Cremieux, a national secretary of Sud Aerien, a small union representing employees of the aviation industry. Conditions during some expulsions are "contrary to human rights."

Socialist lawmaker Michele Delaunay, of Bordeaux, recently became a symbolic sponsor of a Kurd of Turkish nationality who had been ordered to leave France, stalling the expulsion process.

"It's a way to show the public that these problems of expulsion are, above all, human problems and not numbers," Delaunay said, adding that the young man speaks French, worked and paid taxes, making his case "particularly legitimate."

She nevertheless received an official warning that citizens who help illegal aliens stay in France risk a five-year prison term.

Copyright © 2007, The Associated Press