So, faithful to their habits, the SNCF unions are giving us a renewable strike notice from December 11, just to spoil the Christmas holidays of our fellow citizens, many of whom have already bought their TGV tickets at defying prices, not all competition, but all monopoly.
The irony of history is that, among the demands of the unions, there is precisely the refusal of competition from regional lines. They do not see that their strike-activism adds a piece to the already solid case of pro-competition. These unions are also the best advocates for an evolution of the framework of the right to strike in France towards Italian-style legislation which prevents work stoppages during periods when the population moves a lot.
Civil servants work less than 34 hours per week
Such a development is perfectly justified in principle, given that SNCF is a company 100% owned by the State and that it provides a public service. It is logical that the strike is more supervised for the SNCF than in the factories. It is logical that state and public service employees, who serve the general interest, cannot stop working at any time.
This subject of the strike is linked to the more general and more crucial subject of the place of work in the public sector and in our society. At the Rencontres de l’Avenir in Saint-Raphaël, of which L’Express is a partner, former president Nicolas Sarkozy stressed that teachers could work more, which triggered a crisis of political-media hysteria of which our country has the secret. However, according to a senatorial report, French teachers work slightly less than the European average, whether in terms of teaching time or total working time.
Would it be forbidden to talk about it? Would this insult teachers? The problem is broader. According to Dares, civil servants work 1,580 hours per year, or less than 34 hours per week. In the civil service, moving to 35 hours means increasing working hours. The labor problem is not confined to the public sector. According to calculations by Rexecode economists, French employees have the lowest effective annual working hours in Europe after Finland – 122 hours less than in Germany, 162 hours less than in Italy. The employment rate for Europeans aged 15 to 64 is 70%, or 2 points more than in France. These figures are incompatible with the reduction of our deficits, particularly social ones.
We will have to work harder to avoid declining. This idea is simple and fair. Work and productivity are, ultimately, the only two factors for enriching a country. But for people to be able to work and for intelligence to be deployed, taxation must be moderate and legal and regulatory standards must allow freedom to be exercised. This is the whole problem of France and even of Europe, particularly in relation to the United States. The excellent Draghi report has raised awareness, among the elites of the Old Continent, of our economic decline compared to the United States. This relative decline could become more pronounced in the coming years depending on the economic policy that will be pursued by President Donald Trump.
Trumpism, between threat and audacity
Basically, Trumpism represents in certain aspects the worst we do in terms of economic thinking, for example when it threatens the world with a plunge into protectionist horrors. But he is also ambitious when he entrusts Elon Musk with a major plan to simplify the structures of the federal state which will transfer tasks carried out by humans to artificial intelligence. This is enough to give Uncle Sam a massive boost.
France lacks such a plan. The Minister of Public Service Guillaume Kasbarian expressed on X the wish to share with Musk good practices to debureaucratize the public sphere and improve its efficiency. Valérie Pécresse followed suit. The left is choking, screaming, as usual, about fascism. Yet Kasbarian and Pécresse are right. On these subjects, we can rule out France being too bold. Anything that can stimulate it, whether it comes from Trump or elsewhere, is welcome.
Nicolas Bouzou, economist and essayist, is director of the consulting firm Astères
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