The former Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, calls for working more and eliminating the 35-hour week. Is this really a solution to revive growth in France? We take stock with two economists, Eric Heyer and Bertrand Martinot.
“Let’s work more, let’s call into question the 35 hours.” This demand from Gérald Darmanin, former Minister of the Interior in the Attal government and now deputy (Together for the Republic) from the North, has the merit of being clear. “How do we create growth ? (…) How do we create wealth? By working more”he declared on FranceinfoThursday October 3. This is obviously not the first time that the 35-hour working week, gradually implemented in France between 2000 and 2002, has returned to the debate and crystallized tensions around a possible removal of this legal obligation, whether either to (re)switch to a 39 or 32 hour week.
Let us first recall that in reality, the 35-hour reform, the objective of which was to reduce unemployment, contains several components: the reduction in the legal duration of working time from 39 to 35 hours without reducing the remuneration of employees , the annualization of working time (1,607 hours per year), the reduction in employer social security contributions to compensate for the increase in the hourly cost of work with the transition to 35 hours, etc. Talking only about 35 hours is therefore somewhat simplistic because France has not only reduced working hours with this reform.
Also read: Work: should I arrive at the office earlier to be operational on time?
The 35 hours of work per week, a “scapegoat”
What politicians often forget during their declarations. “It’s easy to say it’s all the fault of the 35 hours. It is a real scapegoat which would explain all the ills of the French economy according to some”estimates economist Eric Heyer, also deputy director of the analysis and forecasting department of the French Observatory of Economic Conditions (OFCE). If the impact of this reform on employment is a source of debate – the most optimistic estimate concludes at 350,000 job creations, while some economists judge its effects to be very marginal – one thing is certain: “Company margins and their market shares have not fallen with the 35-hour week”says Eric Heyer, according to whom the decline in the competitiveness of French companies from 2002 is mainly explained by the entry of China into the World Trade Organization and the strong appreciation of the euro against the dollar.
Eventually, “the only variable that has deteriorated with the 35-hour week is public finances”continues the expert. And this is due to reductions in contributions granted to companies that have reduced their working hours. And since then, a stack of devices has been put in place to unravel the 35 hours. An operation which further increased the bill for the public authorities. In 2003, the right in power did not put an end to the 35-hour week as such but raised the ceiling of achievable overtime to be able to return to 39 hours a week in companies that so desired. At the same time, the additional cost of these overtime hours for employers has been reduced and the aid granted to companies reducing their working hours has been generalized to all companies. In 2007, again, Nicolas Sarkozy introduced tax exemption for overtime and further lowered their cost for businesses. This is the famous “work more to earn more”.
Also read: Overtime: my boss doesn’t want to pay me, what should I do?
Result, “to return to the 35 hours, we would have to return to all these strata and aid which have accumulated over the years”points out Eric Heyer. Above all, this would lead to “remove reductions in employer contributions and therefore go back 20 years in this area. The companies themselves do not want it”insists the economist.
Nearly 39 hours of actual work per week for French employees
Talking about eliminating the 35-hour week is all the less relevant because in reality, today, “this is only the threshold for triggering overtime”points out Bertrand Martinot, specialist in employment issues and associated expert at the Institut Montaigne, a think tank of liberal orientation. Because “the actual working hours of French employees reach almost 39 hours per week on average”adds Eric Heyer. Moreover, “more and more employees are on the day package (15% at the end of 2021, Editor’s note). They are therefore asked to work a certain number of days in the year and not a certain number of hours in the week. Talking about 35 hours to this entire population is pointless.”continues the OFCE economist.
For a real elimination of the 35 hours, “we could perfectly imagine a system where the threshold for triggering overtime would be freely negotiated at company level and therefore where 35 hours would no longer be the default norm”evokes Bertrand Martinot.
Also read: Can my employer force me to work overtime?
Not to mention the fact that the increase in working hours would have immediate and negative effects on employment. “Companies need a certain hourly volume of work and to compensate for this increase, they could reduce the number of positions to be filled in the short term”anticipates Eric Heyer. An impact which would be even more negative in the current context of slowing growth and sluggish demand. The expert instead pleads for making the question of working hours cyclical, and not structural. “We could reduce it during crises via partial unemployment and increase it when everything is going well, via the number of overtime hours achievable by employees”imagine Eric Heyer.
But in any case, “the subject is, as always, poorly posed”considers Bertrand Martinot. According to him, “the notion of working more should not be appreciated over a given week, but throughout life”. A point of view shared by Eric Heyer: “In France, we enter the job market too late and we leave it too early.” Clearly, we should focus more on the employment of young people and seniors rather than the 35-hour week to increase the working hours of the French.
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