French government backs down on labor reform bill
The French government has retreated on its labor reform bill following mass protests.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls on Monday unveiled the revised version of the bill saying the government had modified the bill after listening to the "concerns" raised by the unions.
"I want a new start for this bill," Valls said.
In the revised version, the government will no longer impose a cap on severance pay for dismissed workers, a measure many companies argued would have helped reduce the uncertainty of going through the industrial court system. Instead, the new limits will be introduced as non-binding guidelines.
In the revised plan, the government will also give industrial courts more latitude than originally planned to assess the health of a company trying to lay off workers.
Currently, magistrates can block job cuts if they find that a company's other affiliates are profitable. The government wanted to limit the scope to a single location, but has now expanded that to include all of the company's activities in France.
The new plan also increases the right of unskilled workers to training and gives more financial aid to young people.
The government and business leaders claim reforms in the labor law would encourage companies to take on more workers on permanent contracts rather than temporary ones, helping bring down the unemployment rate stuck above 10 percent.
Last week, tens of thousands of students and trade unionists rallied across the country against the government's labor reform plans.
Meanwhile, despite Monday's concessions, unions said they wanted the government to scrap the bill completely, threatening further protests in the coming weeks.
Critics say the reforms put almost all aspects of France's strictly codified labor laws at risk.
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