Rarely an Act will have been the theater, even before being formalized, of so many theoretical controversies and passionate reactions. Two groups of economists have confronted their point of view in the press, each one putting on the front line the prestige of one of their contributors, a Nobel Prize, Jean Tirole, who supports the government project, and the author of a best-seller, Thomas Piketty, who is hostile to it.

For the first group, employee protections are considered as excessive. They are counterproductive and directly at the origin of unemployment. Modernity is not anymore going along with social progress. For the second group, it is the weakness of the growth, resulting from wrong economic choices, which is the cause of that situation. Both uses international comparisons, but nobody tries to rigorously examine characteristics of the countries taken as examples. The only point they agree about is that, since 1973, unemployment has dramatically increased in France. The issue became a major economic and political one in the country, to the point that the President of the Republic has set it as criteria of his mandate success and the condition for running for reelection. 

Each time the left went into power, it contributed to increase social progress: paid vacations in 1936, Social security in 1945, retirement at the age of 60, among other measures, in 1981 and 35 hours working week in 1998. A bill prepared by a socialist government and adopted by a parliament where the left has a majority, which would reduce employee protections through their labor contract, change working duration rules and remuneration of overtime working hours, would create an unprecedented event. It could be asked why, if these measures were so obvious, governments lead by the right which were in charge during ten years before, didn’t implemente them.

Job creations are first the result of economic growth. But it cannot by itself reduce the unemployment rate which depends also of structural factors as demography, capital-labor substitution generated by innovation, the evolution of the working time and the societal environment more or less favorable to the sharing of labor. Foreign examples, and especially the German case with its declining demography and its choice in favor of part-time jobs, are difficult to be used as a reference and to inspire, in France, efficient solutions.

Proposals formulated by the group lead by Jean Tirole are based on one argument: labor contract is too protective. It is necessary to create a unique type of contract which, with time will be more and more protective. This is the same model that the “teacher’s model”, with benefits increasing with the length of service. Those who signed the Tirol article probably did not spend time in working in an enterprise because what makes its success is precisely boldness, imagination and a certain taste for risk. If workers are directly incited to never take any risk in order to avoid to hurting hierarchy and to stay as long as possible in the same position, it is difficult to believe that this will lead to success and jobs creations. Are we looking for a generalization of the civil servant model, which seems in opposition with the very liberal views of this group of economists ? Incentives to increase overtime working are also counterproductive. What is important is that the enterprise can easily adjust its working time according to its orders, upside and downside, through overtime or short-time working. France, in 2007 had chosen to encourage overtime working through tax exemptions. Germany, when economic activity fell in 2008, has adopted measures which encouraged short-time working, which gave companies the possibility to keep their workers, without any excessive costs, in the prospect of a rebound, and, for the workers, to keep their jobs, to pay their bills and to keep spending. Real flexibility is there and not in the faculty to lay off workers. More generally, in a society where economic security, which is necessary to rent a house or to contract a credit, is at the center of our rules, social lack of safety is definitely not the way to  create the rebound and jobs.

The analysis presented by the economists group lead by Thomas Piketty are more consistent with the way business works but they are incomplete. The key person in a company, was used to say François Michelin, is the client. Without client, there are no jobs. So, without growth, there is no unemployment reduction. But if the condition is necessary, it is not sufficient. Unemployment increase in France, since 1973, has not been a continuous phenomenon. Three times, job creations have been substantial, between 1988 and 1991 (750 000), between 1997 and 2002, where, and it is a record, 1.85 million jobs were created and between 2004 and 2008 with an increase of 450 000. Labor laws, at that time were not quite different than they are today and they were not an obstacle. What is important, is to create a virtuous circle in reversing depressive trends coming from all these who feel in danger and who contribute, by their reactions to impeach any rebound. It is there that the reduction of the duration of working time can have a strategic role.

Innovation is not going to run out of steam. Numeric revolution is invading every activity, notably services which, until now, where the place where job creations were concentrated. Robots will not be contained to industrial production. In Japan, some are already thinking about using them to serve clients in restaurants. Banking agencies, in France, are closing, Post offices are becoming “self-servicing” places and there are no more agents in the subway. To imagine that new technologies, which are necessary and where France has demonstrated its ability to perform well,  will create enough jobs to compensate all these which have been destroyed, is as foolish as to believe that the production of tractors had, in the past, given jobs to all these who lost their jobs due to the rural exodus.

The return of growth and of the faith in the future which goes with it will not be sufficient to reduce unemployment. It must be sustained, and the point was missing in Piketty group analysis, by a new social pact on working time. Between 1997 and 2002, growth came back thanks to an international environment as favorable as today: weakness of the euro, low real interest rates and a price of oil around 25 $ per baril. But the reason why jobs creation wave reached this magnitude was the reduction working time through the 35 hours week, which principle was negotiated  by Dominique Strauss-Khan with the CFDT, in order to obtain the support of the union before the 1997 elections. It is possible and legitimate to criticize the way the reform has been implemented after : lack of consultation, brutal and systematic application in every activity, including the public sector. But to deny the past contribution and benefits this reform brought to the economy is incomprehensible.

The “job Act” proposed by the government relies on a mistake: to believe that unemployment problem will be solved through a reduction of social protections. History may forgive mistakes. But the project is also a disavowal in attacking, indirectly, the working time, with politician hidden thoughts. To revive the two lefts quarrel, one belonging to the past, the other modern, social-liberal, is a lot less forgivable.