Nice Première conducted a consultation with elected officials and local politicians to get their opinions on the First Employment Contract, which seems to be dividing a country that would do better to unite and find sustainable solutions for the employment of young people and others.
The first to answer our invitation are:
– Rudy Salles: Deputy of the 3rd district of Nice and Regional Councilor (UDF)
– Jean-Christophe Picard: Spokesperson for the Left Radical Party 06
– Jérôme Rivière: Deputy of the 1st district of Nice (UMP)
– Bruno Della Sudda: Municipal Councilor in Nice (Alternative)
“For some, it’s a ‘Contract of Precariousness and Exclusion’; for others, it’s a ‘Contract For Employment.’ They all revisit the CPE, which hasn’t ceased causing discussion.”
Nice Première: What do you think about the New Employment Contract?
Rudy Salles: For 25 years, all governments have tried to reduce unemployment. It is evident that in this area there have been more failures than successes.
Regarding the CPE, there are two types of problems: substantive issues and procedural issues. As for the substance, what shocks young people, and rightly so, is on one hand the excessively long two-year probationary period and also the fact that one can be dismissed without any justification.
At the very start of this matter, the UDF group had made proposals and filed amendments to overcome these difficulties: reducing the probationary period to one year and reintroducing the need to justify dismissal. Unfortunately, we were not followed by the Government. It is extremely regrettable because such a crisis could have been avoided.
Regarding form: we advocated for consultation with social partners upfront. Unfortunately, this did not happen, and worse, the Prime Minister resorted to using Article 49-3, prematurely closing the parliamentary debate. This too was a mistake that should have been avoided. We had also warned about this point!
Jean Christophe Picard: It’s an outrage! First of all, it is based on an absurd idea: businesses will hire young people… because they will be able to fire them more easily!
Moreover, this measure tramples on the constitutional principle of employee equality. Indeed, if it were to come into force, its main consequence would be to allow an employer to squeeze the young recruits who would be dissuaded from even contemplating learning about their rights. The CPE would thus introduce a multi-speed labor law…
Jérôme Rivière: After many debates and exchanges in the National Assembly, I voted for the law on equal opportunities which includes the First Employment Contract, the CPE. Of course, I questioned whether the CPE, the possible opening for apprenticeship from the age of 14, are the miracle solution to the unemployment problems that our country has known for more than twenty years.
I have no idea, and our economic and social history calls for modesty in this matter.
What I am certain of is that these measures are innovative. They obviously do not aim to harm young French people by distancing them from the educational system as the ideologues of the National Education blame us, or to increase precariousness as the left accuses us! These measures may not prove effective as we hoped when voting. Some problems may arise, and texts might need to be amended again, so what?
Above all, I believe it would be indecent for a political majority to do nothing. The unions, the left-wing parties call for the statusquo while the situation of the country demands action.
Bruno Della Sudda: This is a great evil because not only will it not significantly create jobs, but it will strongly accentuate the precarity of youth, which is unacceptable, and serve as a testing ground for the generalized precarization of the workforce. What is proposed to us through the CNE and CPE is a jungle world.
Nice Première: In your opinion, how far will popular protest go?
RS: I don’t know how far the protest can go, but what I can say is that the conditions for dialogue have degraded to such an extent and the protests have succeeded in convincing public opinion, it can be said that today the situation is no longer controlled.
JCP: It will go all the way! We cannot allow something like this to pass; it would be the beginning of the dismantling of the labor code.
JR: ‘Popular protest’ is quite the term. Yes, a part of the French youth is agitated, walking, shouting, and protesting. But certainly not to contest. The noise, the excitement of the youngest, relayed by union agitation, is to keep everything unchanged. Our country is paralyzed by demands for conservatism, immobilism.
BDS: It’s difficult to say today, but this popular protest seems like a tidal wave. Four observations, however:
1. This popular protest, while manifesting in different forms, continues the rebellion of young people from disadvantaged neighborhoods from November 2005 and the vote of the May 29th, 2005 referendum, i.e., a rejection by society of “liberalism”.
2. An entire generation is becoming politicized here through an alliance between the youth and the world of work, which will produce multiple effects in the coming years.
3. The stiffness and arrogance of Villepin are not personality traits, but a political orientation, thwarted by an increasingly growing protest that takes the right wing and employers by surprise.
4. The protest movement is delayed at the University of Nice compared to other university cities, which is partly explained by political divisions on the left, detrimental to student unionism and frameworks of self-organization essential for deploying mobilization up to the challenge.
But the dynamism and combativeness of the Nice protest on March 18th give hope for an expansion by the next anti-CPE appointments.
Nice Première: What would you do in the place of Dominique de Villepin and his government?
RS: In place of Dominique de Villepin, I would propose a moratorium: the text is withdrawn, and negotiations are opened. This is not an admission of weakness. But as long as there is an entrenched conflict, we must have the courage to recognize it and draw the necessary consequences.
JCP: In their place, I would pray that the Constitutional Council – particularly appealed to by the PRG deputies – censor this provision! That’s the only honorable way out left for them.
JR: A portion of the youth in our country, instead of dreaming of adventure, of pushing forward the generation that preceded them, regrets a past that they will not know. This pessimism, which I understand given the difficult economic situation we live in, generates a desire for secure employment contracts, a nice little job in a protected sector rather than in the private sector…
We must also work to reassure and deploy tools that will prevent the risk of globalization from weighing exclusively on employees.
This is also one of the reasons why I voted no in the referendum on the European constitution. The future cannot be summarized to a market!
BDS: That’s Villepin and his government’s problem, not ours!
Nice Première: Over the past 20 years, new proposals (from both right and left) in the field of employment have been rejected. What would be your proposals to boost employment in France and in your region?
RS: The problem is particularly acute for young people who have no qualifications and therefore cannot get a foothold. We propose that for one year, an unqualified young person should be able to work in a company and be paid by the state during this time. At the end of this period, the young person would have acquired training and experience. This is not apprenticeship but employment under normal conditions with a real salary. But at the same time, there is this educational aspect that allows the young person to enter active life.
I also think there are too many different contracts to the point that even specialists get lost. And it’s not the contract that creates jobs but growth. Finally, to encourage business leaders to hire, we need to reduce the charges weighing on employment and reduce the administrative hassles that go with it!
But for this, elected officials of all stripes would also have to sit around the same table to try to find the right solutions to these problems. When you talk to an unemployed person who cannot find a job, do you think the right-left debate interests them? Not at all. They would respond, “all the same, you talk, but you do not solve the problem.” I believe that on such a serious subject, which touches the dignity of our citizens, we need to have the courage and the will to transcend political divides because otherwise, it is politics, in the broadest sense of the term, that is discredited.
JCP: One should start by stopping the creation of a new type of employment contract every morning! Employers, as well as employees, need a certain legal stability. The real problem of youth employment is the mismatch between their training and the needs of businesses. So, we should start by improving the orientation and training (both initial and continuous) of young people…
JR: If some young people are pessimistic about their future, it is unfortunate to note that many others, the optimists (?), are leaving. More than a million French people under 35 have emigrated… Listening and consulting without a doubt. Proposing and legislating very certainly. But above all, reforming to give our country a chance.
BDS: Indeed, the “liberal” policies pursued for over 20 years (specifically since 1983) have all failed to combat unemployment and precarity. It is urgent to substitute them with an alternative economic policy, breaking with liberal dogmas. This policy must aim for alter-development and therefore a gentle growth, based on a selective relaunch combining the satisfaction of social needs and ecological requirements. For that, several measures are necessary, among them a massive reduction in working hours (32 hours immediately, moving towards 30 hours) allowing free time for all, and massive creation of socially and ecologically useful jobs; breaking away from the EU stability pact to enable another fiscal policy, granting absolute priority to Public Health, Culture, Education, as well as Justice and Public Research, with hundreds of thousands of job creations at stake. There is no other way for a full-employment policy and to end the explosion of unemployment and precarity that particularly penalize young people and women (and even more so those from immigrant backgrounds).
