Emmanuel Macron had made this reform one of his main issues during the last presidential campaign.
France, which welcomed 286,000 declared posted workers (+25% in a year) in 2015, is the second host country after Germany. However, it is also the third sending country, with approximately 140,000 French workers posted, behind Poland and Germany.
Fraud in posted work is a real scourge, politically exploited by the National Front. It must be said that the unease is growing between French and posted workers, particularly in the construction sector (43% of posted workers in France). Fraud takes multiple forms: non-declaration, wages well below the minimum wage, exceeding maximum working hours, substandard accommodation, etc.
Will Europe have a new directive on posted workers by the end of the year? It’s not impossible. A report modifying the 1996 directive currently in force is to be examined in the European Parliament’s Committee on Employment and Social Affairs on October 16, before being discussed in plenary session on October 26.
Since the adoption of the Macron Law in 2015, measures have been instituted to try to curb illegal posted work. Thus, since January 1, 2016, a professional identification card has been introduced, which must be worn by every worker on a site. This card includes a code with the worker’s name, employer’s name, the nature of their contract, and if they are foreign, the date of entry and exit from France.
Despite all of this, a new directive was necessary. The current text dates back to 1996; it was adopted by a European Union then composed exclusively of Western countries, none of the Eastern countries from the former Soviet sphere had yet joined. Which changed everything afterwards…
Moreover, the draft report that could serve as the basis for a new directive revisits several fundamental points of the 1996 directive, in order to correct the most glaring defects that allow rules to be circumvented and create inequalities between local employees and posted workers.
