PARIS: A summit aimed at creating half a million badly needed jobs in France got off to a rocky start yesterday, with two major labour organisations saying they would boycott the event after accusing the state of kowtowing to business.
As President Francois Hollande opened the two-day labour conference, where he hopes to win an agreement to create more jobs in return for tax and social benefit cuts for companies, the CGT and Force Ouvriere (FO) union federations said they would shun crucial round-table talks scheduled for today, union sources said.
The summit comes against a backdrop of record unemployment in the eurozone’s second largest economy, with 3.38 million people out of work. The high jobless figures were seen as a key factor behind humiliating election defeats for Hollande’s Socialists this year.
The unions have been angered by Prime Minister Manuel Valls’s decision last week to defer a scheme for early retirement for those working in physically demanding jobs, following complaints from leading employers union Medef that it was too costly. The Medef also threatened to boycott the summit. Union officials have expressed anger at Valls for not consulting them before making key decisions and have accused him as having contempt for workers.
Hollande’s embattled government has pledged to cut state spending between 2015-2017 to finance a package of payroll and income tax cuts designed to make companies more competitive and attract investment. The plan revolves around a so-called Responsibility Pact that offers businesses €40bn ($54bn) worth of cuts in taxes and social benefit charges in exchange for a pledge to create some 500,000 jobs by 2017. But the scheme is still woolly and it is yet to be worked out exactly how the government can force companies to create a specified number of jobs. AFP
