MORE TAXES OR MORE WORK
A Ravenous State Devours Its Citizens,
Ravenous Citizen Zombies Rise And Devour The State
FRANCE’S 35-HOUR WEEK ADDS
€100BN TO THE NATIONAL DEBT
PARIS October 26, 2006 (Times Online) - France's 35-hour working week [réduction du temps de travail, RTT] has added €100 billion (£67 billion [USD $130B]) to its national debt, according to Thierry Breton, the country’s Finance Minister. M Breton said that reductions in social taxes on firms to compensate for a drop in the hours worked by their employees had cost an annual €20 billion for the past five years [about 1.4% of French GDP per annum and 7% in aggregate].A spokesman for the minister said: "Since these reductions have been financed by loans, they have added to the national debt."
The 35-hour working week, introduced by the former Socialist Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, in 2000, is at the centre of the debate ahead of next year’s presidential election. The leading Socialist contender, Ségolène Royal, and her two challengers, Laurent Fabius and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, have all called for the 35-hour week to be extended to all workers.
Restaurant staff, for instance, have remained on a 39-hour week under a deal that was recently ruled illegal by France's highest court.
However, in an interview with The New York Times, M Breton said:
“With the 35 hours, you work less, you earn more. It’s a beautiful, a generous, idea. But who pays? Our children pay. We have to rethink the organisation of work time. People are going to have to work longer. French Socialists are the only people in the world who say work time must be cut.”
Last week, he attacked the head of the French Employers’ Federation, Laurence Parisot, for her failure to criticise the Socialist approach to working time. In turn, she pointed out that President Chirac’s Government had failed to scrap the 35-hour ceiling.
The Socialist Party claims that the 35-hour week has created a total of 400,000 jobs since 2000, while the Employers’ Federation puts the figure at 200,000. However, many economists say that it was the accompanying cut in social taxes that spawned job creation, and not the cut in working time. Under the package of incentives, employers obtained a cut of up to 85 per cent in social taxes for moving to the 35-hour week.
These taxes, which finance France’s welfare state, add about 50 per cent to the cost of employing a worker.
France 1,546 hours a year
United Kingdom 1,672 hours a year
United States 1,713 hours a year
Source: OECD, 2K5 Estimates (Our sourced figures differ from those in the news report.)
The French work nearly 5 of their 35-hour weeks less than Americans per year. The trick, of course, is not just working more. The trick is working enough to pay your way. And to be fair to France, every low-birth-rate nation with a welfare candy store has hard choices ahead. The difference in France is that the RTT prevents making up the shortfall in welfare candy by workers working more.
It is also apparent that the RTT, in place since 2K2, has done little for job creation. The 200K-400K jobs credited to the RTT works out to a mere 50K-100K jobs per annum or 0.2%-0.4% of the total workforce with a net increase in unemploment since the 35-hour week became French law.
Whether workers work more or more workers work, more work is required of the French for the state to keep its candy store open.
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“With the 35 hours, you work less, you earn more. It’s a beautiful, a generous, idea. But who pays? Our children pay. We have to rethink the organisation of work time. People are going to have to work longer. French Socialists are the only people in the world who say work time must be cut.”
Wow! Brilliant! How about with 30 hours, you work less, you earn more.
Hey let's make it even better. with 20 hours, you work less, you earn more.
Nah... those evil business men are still being too uncaring.. After all they are now expecting 20 whole hours a week. Lets try something more fair. Now 10 hours, your work less, you earn more.
Hey 10 hours is still totally unfair! Why should people even have to work? 0 hours, you work less, you earn more. BRILLIANT! The perfect socialist society. Those evil business men should pay everything with no workers just for the privledge of setting up shop in France! Especially if they are the evil multinational American companies of Coca Cola and McDonalds! The entire welfare system of France should be paid for by the evil American companies just because they exist! *THAT* would be the perfect socialist society, right?
