Nordic-Style Designs Sit at Heart of French Labor Plan
“We need flexibility, but also a new kind of welfare system, with more rights for people taking risks,
and more rights for people who are not finding their place in globalization.”
Yet in draping labor reforms under the banner of the Nordic way, Mr. Macron’s administration confronts considerable skepticism.
On a recent morning at the unemployment office in the 19th Arrondissement of Paris — an area home to many North
African immigrants — people lining up for assistance tended not to see unions as a force in their lives.
The changes are supposed to make it possible for start-up companies to pay lower wages in their early stages, rather than having to hew to national labor contracts
that govern janitors, agricultural workers and people on assembly lines.
In many major economies — strikingly, in the United States
and Britain — the unemployment rate has fallen sharply, yet average wages are lower than a decade ago, after accounting for inflation.
Economists doubt that the Nordic model can be transplanted from Scandinavia — where dealings between unions
and employers are convivial — to France, where strikes that bring life to a halt are a cherished ritual.