Fixing France's broken social model? An assessment of employment and labour market policy under the Sarkozy presidency

Abstract

Taking as its starting point the programme and campaign of Nicolas Sarkozy in the presidential election of 2007 around the 'value of work', this article reviews and assesses the main reforms undertaken during the period of his presidency. It focuses on the reform of working time regulationsg through tax exoneration for overtime hours, minimum income benefit (the introduction of the Revenu de solidarite´active), moves to reform labour contracts, measures to help combat youth unemployment and pension reform. The article highlights inconsistencies between the political discourse of structural reform and a practice of incrementalism caused by ideological ambiguities, mismatch between policy design and economic conditions, and the reality of policymaking in a complex and fragmented polity.

Employment and labour market policy during the Hollande presidency: a tragedy in three acts?

“…The broad conclusion to be drawn from the long-term trend in unemployment is that both the Sarkozy and Hollande presidencies put in place policy mixes (see Barbier 2008;Milner 2012aMilner , 2014 which had the effect of temporarily slowing down the inexorable rise in unemployment but had little impact on its progression in the longer term, and François Hollande's specific pledge to reverse the tide of unemployment was not met. Ultimately, over and above personal mis-steps, this is what cost the incumbent his re-election and his legacy, and what caused the shock failure and current crisis of the ruling Socialist Party.…”

Convergence from below? The reform of minimum income protection in France and the UK

“…Sarkozy's 2007 electoral campaign centred on the "value of work" and the problems of welfare dependency (in French, l'assistanat) (Milner, 2012). He explicitly associated the latter with the PS, who were thus on the defensive in the debates over the RSA, and obliged to clearly reaffirm their commitment to promoting work -much as the Labour Party has proved vulnerable to being labelled as the "welfare party" by the government when it has criticised elements of the Welfare Reform Act.…”

“…This also allowed the RSA to maintain its emphasis on activation and job search (see below) without directly challenging the rules within ASS -the so-called dispense de recherche d'emploi -that still allow some older claimants to receive the benefit without having to actively seek work or register with the PES. This nonetheless resulted in a paradox whereby a structural benefit reform largely motivated by a general discourse of encouraging work over social assistance receipt (Milner, 2012) ended up leaving the main social assistance benefit explicitly designed for jobseekers entirely unchanged, as well as counteracting the drive for simplification. The latter was further challenged by the merger between the API and RMI eventually being a somewhat partial one, with the distinction between benefit rates under the old system being carried into the design of the out-of-work RSA, which for single parents is still paid either at basic (ex-RMI) or increased (ex-API) rate depending on the age of the youngest child.…”

The politics of unemployment policy in an age of austerity: France in comparative perspective

“…Nicolas Sarkozy's presidency began with pledges to carry out structural labour market reform, in particular on pensions, activation and the replacement of France's 20 or so employment contracts with one single contract of limited duration. In practice, the 2007-2012 Sarkozy administration's output was a mixture of policies which were often reactive (Curtarelli et al, 2012;Milner, 2012) with a notable turn to austerity evident only after 2010 with a freeze on public sector employment and a hike in the lowest rate of VAT. The summer of 2010 saw a sudden and dramatic rise in unemployment that also resulted in the adoption of an action plan on employment, focusing on younger and older (50 plus) workers in 2011, and reversing the austerity-led planned budget cut in ALMPs.…”