A “Student Internship Charter in Companies” was signed on Wednesday by the government, represented by ministers Gérard Larcher (Deputy Minister for Employment, Labor, and Professional Integration of Young People) and François Goulard (Deputy Minister for Higher Education and Research), along with ten business, student, and academic organizations. The charter sets the conditions for internships in companies. Signed by the three parties (the student, the hosting company, and the higher education institution), the charter is a mandatory prerequisite for the completion of the internship.
It specifies the commitments and responsibilities of the three signatories, as well as the duration and planned missions. The text provides for a limitation of the duration of internships outside educational programs to six months, and mandatory remuneration for internships lasting more than three months. The internship charter guarantees mandatory supervision of the intern during his or her immersion period in the company, provided by both a teacher and a company representative. Gérard Larcher promised that a decree would be published in June to specify the implementation of a social security employer contributions waiver for companies up to 360 euros. This waiver will encourage companies to better compensate interns.
The Génération Précaire collective, the initiator of highlighting the precarious status of interns, was present on Wednesday but did not sign this agreement, giving the following reasons: “the government is trying to mask the misery of the regulation regarding internships behind a charter. Indeed, behind this thin screen, the situation of the interns is not about to change. Nothing effectively protects interns from the increasing abuses of the system (disguised employment, abusive internships, fictitious registrations…).”
Despite everything, this charter is a step forward in recognizing the precarious and even ghostly status of interns. Discussions will continue so that the abuses, denounced for many months by Génération Précaire, will be reduced so that one day internships will regain their initial objectives: to introduce students to company life so that they can complement theory with practice.
Nice-Premiere had published an article in November on the Génération Précaire collective and the reasons for their anger: [https://www.nicepremium.fr/article/lorsque-stagiaire-rime-avec-precaire.242.html](https://www.nicepremium.fr/article/lorsque-stagiaire-rime-avec-precaire.242.html)
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The Communique from the Génération Précaire Collective:
“Will a non-binding charter change the attitude of those who commit abuses? A fire is not put out by fine words and noble intentions.
If the interns of Génération Précaire protect themselves behind a mask, the government attempts to mask the misery of the regulation concerning internships behind a charter. Indeed, behind this thin veil, the situation of interns is not about to change. Nothing effectively protects interns from the increasing abuses of the system (disguised employment, abusive internships, fictitious registrations…). The height of hypocrisy, the State as an employer proposes a charter to companies but will not apply it to itself.
When the State asks certain employers to apply a charter rather than adopting legislative measures ensuring equal rules for everyone, it demonstrates the dysfunction of the system.
This charter in no way constitutes an adequate or sufficient solution to resolve the problem of abusive internships and beyond that, to guarantee a minimum of rights and consideration for the 800,000 internships carried out each year.
This charter seeks to place the entire burden of regulating internships on higher education institutions and organizations, which, however, do not have the means to do so. Companies bear an undeniable responsibility in these increasingly evident abuses, let them assume it! They do it with apprenticeships, which are fairly well supervised. What about internships?
Génération Précaire seriously questions the State’s reluctance to regulate a failing system from which it itself benefits (unpaid internships in ministries and local authorities).
We remind that nothing yet allows a company, for example, of 60 permanent employees to find itself in competition with a company of 10 employees who would use 50 interns. Nor does it allow an unemployed person to find themselves in competition with a recent graduate in fictitious re-registration. At 2,160 euros for six months of internship at 360 euros/month against about 12,000 euros for 6 months of the minimum wage, this is indeed social dumping!
Therefore, in the face of this bad joke, we call for a major mobilization on May 1 to remind that currently, interns, half-students, half-workers, are still not included in the labor code and nothing ensures their proper educational supervision.
Solutions exist, Génération Précaire has proposed them: for better internships, for better professional integration, for more jobs…
Who cares?
PS: However, good sports and constructive, we wish to pass new ideas of non-binding charters to the government here, which will certainly meet with great success:
Charter of Road Users – Charter of Good Conduct for Golf Green Users – Charter for the Respect of Green Spaces in Petrochemical Environments – Charter for the Prohibition of Chewing Gum at the Opera House – Charter for the Rehabilitation of Jukeboxes from the Yé-yé Era – Ethical Charter for Car Thieves – Charter of Good Practices Among Sports Fans – Charter for Gourmets for the Diversity of Collective Canteen Menus – Charter of Silence Around Airport Peripheries – Charter for the Preservation of Gironde Partridge – Charter for the Management of Wild Landfills – Charter of Spam Users…”
