Why France discusses work and the right to laziness

“Macron, take your pension, not ours!” read a banner during a recent protest march. “Subway, work, grave,” reads another, more existential. On February 7, demonstrators took to the streets to protest against the president’s plan Emmanuel Macron raise the minimum retirement age from 62 to 64. Turnout was not as high as on the previous two strike days in January. But all unions support new strikes. Most of the opposition parties, and a majority of French people, are also resolutely against the pension reform.

The legislation, which reached parliament on February 6, not only divided the country, but sparked a dialogue of the deaf. The government says the reform is “indispensable” for the pension system to be balanced and for France to keep its generous pensions, at a time when people are living nearly a decade longer than in 1980. Opponents accuse the government to brutally dismantle the hard- won rights of a modern welfare state.

So far, Macron’s centrist government has failed to convince the French that raising the retirement age is a necessary or fair way to cover an annual pension deficit that will reach 14 billion euros ( $15 billion) by 2030. Critics of the opposition left-wing alliance, NUPES, say it would be fairer to tax the ‘super-profits’, i.e. the wealthy . According to a report by Oxfam France, a 2% tax on the assets of French billionaires would eliminate the pension deficit overnight. Center-right Republicans, who in a past life raised the retirement age from 60 to the current 62, now have the nerve to insist that Macron’s version is unfair.

However, by focusing exclusively on retirement age, the government also fails to explain that it is not just an accounting issue. This is part of a broader attempt by Macron to put labor at the center of his second term project. “Pension reform,” says Marc Ferracci, a labor economist and MP for Macron’s centrist party, “is central to the campaign’s goal of achieving full employment and increase the employment rate of older workers. Full employment would reduce the unemployment rate from the current 7% to around 5%, a level not seen since 1979. At 56%, the proportion of people aged 55 to 64 who work in France has increased by five points in during Macron’s last term. , but still well below Germany’s 72%.

save gray hair

For this, the Government wants to set up a “upper index”, to control the proportion of older workers on the payroll and discourage companies from laying off gray-haired people, as they often do. For young people, it multiplies the number of apprenticeship places, which in 2022 reached 980,000, the highest level ever recorded. At the same time, the government has tightened the rules on unemployment benefits that apply during periods of economic growth and labor shortages. Currently, many French companies say they are struggling to fill vacancies.

Such a project makes sense for France. However, since the pandemic, many countries have rethought the nature of employment. And, in the French mentality, progress towards a better society is measured by the decrease in workload. In 1880, Paul Lafargue, a socialist thinker, published “The Right to Laziness” (“The right to laziness), advocating a three-hour working day and denouncing the “madness of the love of work”. two decades ago,Hello Sloth(“Hello Lazy”), a guide to doing nothing at work, became a bestseller.

Shorter working hours, originally designed to protect workers from abuse, have become part of the country’s post-war history. In 1982, François Mitterrand lowered the retirement age from 65 to 60. Two decades later, France introduced the 35-hour working week. The proportion of French people who consider work “very important” has fallen from 60% in 1990 to just 24% in 2021. The pandemic has accelerated this change, explains Romain Bendavid, in a document for the Jean-Jaurès Foundation, a group of reflection . In 2022, only 40% of French people will prefer to earn more and have less free time, compared to 63% in 2008.

Insofar as French politicians talk about all this, it is mainly to exchange insults and slogans. Sandrine Rousseau, leader of the Greens of the NUPES coalition, openly defends the “right to laziness” and wants to introduce a 32-hour work week. Gérald Darmanin, Macron’s interior minister, dismisses NUPES as “people who don’t like to workand that he believes he can live in an “effortless society”.

not so lazy

In reality, French society is more complex than this war of words suggests. Thanks to more lax regulations, French workers now work on average more hours per week (37 hours) than Germans (35 hours), and are almost as productive per hour worked. Even within the NUPES, some politicians, like Fabien Roussel, leader of the Communist Party, embrace the value of work. The French can say that work is no longer at the center of their lives; but a new study by the Institut Montaigne, a think tank, shows that three-quarters also say they are overall happy at work, a figure that has been stable for several years.

However, France does not have such a debate, and 64% remain against the pension reform. Macron, according to a source close to him, is determined to hold on. If he does not find the votes in Parliament, where he no longer has a majority, the reform could be approved by a special constitutional provision, although at the risk of causing new legislative elections. In any case, unless Macron manages to convince the French of his merits, he could end up with a successful reform under his belt, but a bitterly resented country.

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