French Employment Law

The Article can be found here....


In a spirit of international law, this article talks about the reforms occuring in France. For those of you who are unaware, France has recently been experiencing extremely high levels of unemployment (roughly 22%) and the government has been facing enormous social unrest regarding the employment situation. If my understanding of french employment is correct, a French employer is unable to fire an employee 'at-will' and must have a reason to do so. This propsed law was to enact a probation period for young employees, where they could be fired if deemed necessary. Discrimination of younger workers was feared by te laws opponents.

"She said that most employers were against the CPE, as they believed it would have led to a two-tier recruitment market where young people would have been stigmatised and treated unfairly."

"The sticking point in the proposed contract was the clause that would have allowed French employers to dismiss workers under the age of 26 without the need for explanation within a two-year probation period."

This article may have fit a little bit nicer earlier in the semester, I think it is still important to realize that countries outside of the United States do not share nearly the same protectoin in the workplace that we do here. Although there may be problems in the United States, I believe we are much better off than many of our European counterparts.

• What do you think?

• As the French cannot fire an employer without 'real and seroius reasons' without the fear of legal reprocussoins, how do you think American employers or employees would react if our at-will policy of employment was taken away from us?

• What reasons might the French government have to keep a policy like this and is there anything that the US can learn from it?