French Student Protests

This weeks student protests in France have certainly demonstrated that the country still has a healthy interest in politics. However, the demands of the protestors betray a disappointing lack of realism and imagination.

Young people in France are right to be concerned abour rising levels of inequality and should be opposed to policies that try to make France into another Britain. However, the French economy does need some restructuring and deregulating. The idea of long term, 35 hour a week contracts is simply too easy and to inflexible for the realities of the 21st Century. Similarly, ineqality cannot be addressed if unemployment remains at 10 percent or more.

With the population of France rapidly aging it is unrealistic to limit the work week to 35 hours and increase pensions and other social welfare benefits. However, the aging of the population does provide some opportunities. Demand for young workers is likely to increase and this should help reduce unemployment. France should now move with the times and make it easier to hire and fire wokers. What the student protestors should be focusing on is making sure that the minimum wage stays high so that workers are compensated for reduced job security. The Netherlands and Australia have shown the way by introducing a lot of labour market flexibility while maintaining high wages, good work conditions and relatively low unemployment.
Compared with countries like Britain and New Zealand, France has a pretty strong industrial base and high productivity levels so it can afford to pay its workers high wages.

The French should also put more resources into retraining wokers and assisting them to find work so as to limit the impact of reduced job security. Apparently Denmark has put a lot of resources into these kind of programmes and this a major reason why this country has a lower rate of unemployment levels than many other E.U states.

Rather than trying to stop the inevitable the French protestors should be trying to make the most of the reform process.