The French are working less and earning more: Lionel Laurent

In a remarkable turn of events, France is experiencing a dramatic shift in its labour landscape, leaving analysts questioning the nation’s stance on work and wages. Last year’s May Day saw nearly a million protesting Macron’s labour reforms, yet this year’s turnout dwindled to a mere 120,000. Is this a nod to Macron’s vision or merely a temporary ceasefire? As the country braces for the Olympics, workers flex their bargaining power, demanding better pay and shorter hours, challenging traditional labour paradigms. As the government grapples with economic reforms, France teeters on the edge of a new era of labour relations, where the balance between work and life takes centre stage.

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By Lionel Laurent

May Day was a big deal in France last year: Almost 1 million protesters took to the streets over President Emmanuel Macron’s unpopular push to get people to work longer and retire later. But this year, only about 120,000 people turned out, the protest equivalent of a Gallic shrug.

Could this be the sign that the French are on board with Macron’s pro-jobs “revolution”? Don’t count on it.

Rather, this rare outbreak of social peace in a country famous for chopping the heads off its leaders speaks to the epic bargaining power of workers in 2024. The upcoming Olympic Games have triggered a 100-meter sprint for gold-medal paydays in sectors critical for their smooth running. Strikes on trains and planes have been averted in return for higher wages, more time off and — in the case of state-owned rail firm SNCF — an offer to soften later retirement with 15 months off in return for 75% of salary.

Far from a celebration of labor, this sounds instead like “working less to earn more,” as one air-traffic controller put it to Les Echos newspaper, in a play on a slogan by one of Macron’s predecessors, Nicolas Sarkozy. Which is why Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has summoned SNCF boss Jean-Pierre Farandou to explain this “provocation.” While these wage deals — estimated at tens of millions of euros — are a mere drop in the ocean (or goutte d’eau, as they say) to the French deficit, they’re not a great look when the government is trying to save up to €20 billion ($21.4 billion) partly by getting more people into work.

Farandou might counter to fuming politicians that such is the cost of reindustrializing France, with chief executives up and down the land having to behave more like a generous Big Mother than a domineering Big Brother. Signs of an endemic labor and skills shortage that go beyond the Olympics are forcing companies to break out the bonuses at a time of historically low unemployment. Tiremaker Cie Generale des Etablissements Michelin SCA recently unveiled a new living wage for staff, which for a Parisian would be double the minimum wage of around €21,000 annually.

But there still seems to be a persistent anti-meritocratic skew in a country where waiters and teachers are increasingly priced out of the city where they work and elite graduates watch enviously as US counterparts quadruple their salaries. A preference for more time over more money is baked into the land of the 35-hour work week, but demographic decline and lagging productivity are stretching the model thin.

France has the fourth highest tax rate for workers in the OECD as a proportion of total labor costs: A boss who wants to reward a French worker on minimum wage with a raise of €100 per month would have to pay €485, according to Gilbert Cette, of NEOMA Business School. The myth is that the French are happy with this state of affairs, but income level actually has a higher influence on life satisfaction relative to other European countries, according to economic research center Cepremap. If pension reform generated so much fury last year, it’s because retirees simply seem to have it better than just about everyone else.

The risk now is that economic growth and labor demand are fading, at the very moment Macron is trying to unleash a new wave of reforms to push more people into work. While France is more attractive to foreign investors than it used to be, CEOs are grumbling again about labor costs relative to its neighbors. And while transport unions seem ecstatic over those gold-medal deals, those outside their ambit are understandably less impressed. With the far-right rising in the polls, this year’s moment of labor peace could be the calm before the storm.