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France’s new economy minister suggests scrapping 35 hour working week rules
Emmanuel Macron suggests that "companies and sectors" could waive French rules on working hours, in comments published just two days after he became France's new economy minister
France could finally end controversial restrictions on the working week, as the country’s new economy minister suggested that he was in favour of scrapping the rules.
The 36-year-old Emmanuel Macron took aim at the 35 hour week law in comments published just two days into his new job.
“We could authorize companies and sectors, where there are majority agreements, to waive the rules around working hours and pay,” he told French magazine Le Point.
He suggested that changes could go further still, and asked why this liberalisation should not be extended to all companies, “provided that there is a majority agreement with the employees”.
Mr Macron suggested that France’s labour markets were trapped by regulations that created obstacles for the jobless.
Laurent Berger, head of France’s CFDT trade union, has said that Mr Macron has “made a mistake” and that scrapping the rules “is out of the question. The subject is closed.”
The 35 hour working week rules have been in place since 2000, and have attracted strong international criticism.
David Cameron slammed the measures in 2012, when he said that the law resulted in “your [French] businesses become more expensive to run than anybody else’s, you lose out to the competition and you have less jobs in the economy”.
This morning, analysts at Barclays said that Mr Macron’s appointment “sends a strong signal” about the direction French policy.
He is expected to speed up the country’s reform process, and to put an end to any confusion over which direction the regime is headed.
Mr Macron spoke to Le Point last week, when he would not have known that about his upcoming promotion.
Etienne Gernelle, managing editor of Le Point, told French news channel LCI that Mr Macron was “speaking freely”.
Mr Macron, a former investment banker who spent four years with Rothschild bank, was appointed to his new role on Tuesday.
He is considered a centrist hire by French standards, despite being a Socialist Party member.
Mr Macron replaced a hard left predecessor, Arnaud Montebourg, as economy minister, after internal divisions saw President Francois Hollande purge the cabinet of left-wingers.
The position of Mr Montebourg became untenable after he slammed the government’s austerity policies as “catastrophic”.