France: New measures to improve equality of opportunity

Shaken by the recent violence and rioting in urban suburbs across the country, the French government has decided to put into place a series of measures that are designed to help marginalised young people gain entry into mainstream French society and the labour market. We review the main provisions.

The French prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, presented new measures aimed at reducing discrimination on the labour market on 1 December 2005. The measures were submitted to the social partners for consultation at a meeting of the national collective bargaining commission on 12 December 2005. A number of the measures will be given legal force and draft legislation is expected to be submitted to the council of ministers at the beginning of January 2006.

This move is a reaction to the recent crisis experienced in the suburbs of French cities, which has revealed a range of weaknesses in the structure of French society, particularly in terms of inequality of opportunity. Policymakers acknowledge that there is widespread discrimination - both direct and indirect - against people who live in areas perceived as disadvantaged and undesirable (usually in urban suburbs) and those who originate from immigrant communities or French overseas departments and territories. According to a survey carried out by the French discrimination observatory, on the basis of using the same CV, those people who live in disadvantaged areas have almost half the chance of obtaining a job interview than those who live in better-regarded areas. Further, a person of North African origin is five times less likely to obtain a job interview than a person who is not.

Inequality of opportunity is particularly stark among young people - the average population of disadvantaged areas is younger and less skilled than the national average, and therefore more exposed to the risk of unemployment. In total, 16.7% (724,000 people) in these disadvantaged areas are between the ages of 15 and 24 and 31.8% of these have no qualifications. This compares with the national average of 20.1% of people without any qualifications. The unemployment rate among young people in disadvantaged areas, at 38%, is almost twice the national average and is thought to be increasing.

Faced with these kinds of statistics and trends, and the rioting that took place across French cities in recent months, it was clear to the French government that something needed to be done to bring young, disenfranchised people back into the mainstream of French society. The government is now regarding this as an opportunity to act and de Villepin has declared that 2006 will be the year of Equality of Opportunity across the country.

Detail of the new legislation

One of the first concrete outcomes of this initiative is the drafting of legislation on equality of opportunity. The draft law focuses on five main areas:

• measures to help improve education, employment levels and economic development;
• measures aimed at improving equality of opportunity and fighting discrimination;
• measures aimed at helping parents to exercise their parental authority;
• measures to bolster the powers of town halls in the fight against anti-social behaviour; and
• the creation of a system of voluntary civic activities for young people.

Junior apprenticeships

The government believes that many young people encounter a range of difficulties during their time at school, which result in them having virtually no opportunities to prosper in French society. It therefore aims to create a "junior apprenticeship", aimed at allowing these young people to gain confidence in their talents and skills and enabling them to succeed by acquiring basic skills. This will result in a diploma of initial training that will allow them to go on to an apprenticeship.

The scheme will be based on a personalised teaching programme comprising two phases: an initial junior apprenticeship, during which people will be introduced to a range of career options; and a "confirmed" junior apprenticeship, during which people will be covered by an apprenticeship contract. Both the young person and, as far as possible, their family, will be involved in this personalised teaching programme. The young person will be assigned a personal tutor, who will be the point of contact with the young person's family and will also be with them on the work experience placements in which they will participate as part of their apprenticeship programme

This will be a voluntary scheme and the young people on the scheme may at any time leave and rejoin normal schooling. The government hopes that this measure will underpin existing apprenticeship schemes in France and contribute to reaching the government's goal of 500,000 apprentices.

If the young person is judged to have completed this junior apprenticeship scheme satisfactorily, they may, from the age of 15, embark on a normal apprenticeship scheme. The labour code will be amended to allow 15yearolds to begin apprenticeship schemes.

In order to encourage companies to participate in this junior apprenticeship scheme, the government will increase the tax credit for taking on each junior apprentice from €1,600 to €2,200. The government will also give a tax credit of €100 to companies for every week that they allow a junior apprentice to participate in work experience during the initial phase of the scheme.

Professionalisation contracts

So-called "professionalisation contracts" were introduced by the law of 4 May 2004 (EIRR 366 p.27), based on the social partners' national multi-sector agreement on training and life-long learning, concluded on 5 December 2003. These contracts aim to stimulate labour market access for young people between the ages of 16 and 25 by allowing them to gain a recognised qualification. They are based on a mixture of teaching and work experience, leading to a specific qualification.

A year after the entering into force of this law, it would appear that there have been some difficulties surrounding the financing of training by joint training funding agencies - a number of these have a somewhat restricted list of the types of training that they will finance. Therefore, the new legislation is proposing to provide that, if the joint training financing organisation does not reply to a funding request within a month, it will be assumed that the fund has agreed to finance this training.

Helping young people to find work

There are already a range of measures in place that aim to help young people to enter the labour market. Chief among these is law 2002-1095 of 29 August 2002 (updated by the social cohesion law, number 2005-32 of 18 January 2005 (EIRR 373 p.6)). This legislation gives employers who pay into unemployment insurance funds a monthly payment if they recruit a 16- to 22-year-old on an open-ended contract. The age ceiling is increased to 25 years in some cases. Employers receive a higher payment if the young person recruited has no formal qualifications.

The new draft legislation states that young people originating from designated disadvantaged urban areas (zones urbaines sensibles, ZUS) will, up to the age of 25, have priority of access to these existing labour market measures. At present, less than 8% of recruitment using these measures is accounted for by young people from these disadvantaged areas.

Favoured urban areas

Legislation dating from 14 November 1996 (no.96-987) created a special kind of favoured urban area (zone franche urbaine, ZFU). These are areas in which companies can operate without being obliged to pay any tax or social security contributions. The idea behind this is to create employment opportunities for the inhabitants of areas that are classified as being "in difficulty". This is usually linked to urban regeneration projects and other schemes aimed at improving the economic development of a region.

The results from this project have been largely positive and have led the government to propose its extension to new areas. In addition, the government will prolong, harmonise and strengthen the fiscal and financial benefits open to companies operating in these zones. One of the government's main aims is to encourage large companies to invest in the small and medium-sized enterprises located in these zones. The government also wants to put into place new measures to encourage regeneration in these areas, particularly their commercial and cultural aspects. To this end, it will speed up the planning process for developments of more than 300 square metres.

The government is proposing to extend this favourable framework to companies of up to 250 workers. Companies will be exonerated from tax and social charges for the first five years, followed by nine years of tax and social charges at a reduced rate. Further, these companies will pay no tax on profit up to a ceiling of €100,000 during a 12-month period. This will be increased by €5,000 for each employee recruited from a disadvantaged area, on a full-time contract for a minimum of six months.

The French government is therefore applying to the European Commission to get agreement to create new favoured urban areas and to extend the existing areas. It is hoped that new zones can be created by 1 August 2006.

New national agency for social cohesion and equality of opportunity

The government will create a new agency for social cohesion and equality of opportunity, with the aim of increasing the presence of the state in disadvantaged areas and speeding up the urban regeneration process. The new agency will be a public body with a brief to put into place measures to help the residents of disadvantaged areas and more general measures to help members of the public in all parts of the country to integrate into the workforce and civil society. The immigrant population will be a particular target for its actions and it will also focus on fighting discrimination.

The agency will also be involved in developing the planned voluntary scheme of civic activities for young people (see below). It will either take actions directly or organise and coordinate the activities of other public bodies, by means of setting up a tendering process. Half of the agency's members will be representatives of the French state and the other half will be made up of representatives of the social partners, local authorities, joint public cooperation bodies, French regional areas (départements), regions, national public social security funds and other experts. At departement level, the prefect will be the representative of the agency in terms of signing agreements on its behalf.

The new agency will be financed jointly by the state, European structural funds and the French deposit fund (caisse des depots et consignations). It will also receive some funding from the national family allowance fund, the central mutual social fund for agriculture, the national sickness insurance fund for dependent workers, the national pension insurance fund and other public bodies and financial sources. Details of how it will operate will be set out by future decree.

Strengthening the powers of the discrimination agency

The draft law envisages strengthening the powers of the new high-level authority against discrimination for equality (Haute autorite de lutte contre les discriminations et pour l'egalite, Halde). This authority was set up by legislation that came into force on 31 December 2004 (New anti-discrimination body for France), but up until now has functioned as an intermediary between alleged victims of discrimination and the legal system. The new legislation will give Halde extra powers in the following areas:

• it will be able to levy fines of up to €5,000 on individuals ("physical persons") and up to €25,000 on organisations ("moral persons") in the case of breach of equality and anti-discrimination legislation. More details of the circumstances in which it will be able to do this will be set out by decree;
• it will be able to order the posting up or public notification and dissemination of any sanctions it has ordered; and
• any appeals against a decision taken by Halde will be made to the council of state (Conseil d'Etat), which is France's supreme administrative court.

The new law will also allow Halde to recommend the suspension for up to two months of the activity of a physical or moral person if they have been found guilty of discrimination while carrying out this activity.

The law will also legalise the practice of "testing", under which European and North African candidates can be presented for a job interview to test whether a company's selection practices are discriminatory. This follows a ruling by the French court of appeal in June 2002 that this practice could be used as evidence in court.

Halde has only been up and running for around six months, but has already dealt with more than a million cases, half of which are linked to employment.

Voluntary civic activities

The government believes that some young people would like to be involved in civic activities or activities that are of general benefit and use to society and that this would also help them to acquire work skills and experience. It believes that involvement in such activities would be of great benefit to society and also help to strengthen the bond between generations. It would also constitute a first step towards helping young people gain skills to put them in a better position to gain access to the labour market on a long-term basis. These skills include working in a collective project and having to abide by a range of social rules and regulations. Young people would also gain a sense of association with a particular area, which would be especially beneficial in regions where young people are faced with difficulties of a social and work-related nature.

The government is therefore proposing to create a voluntary system of civic activities, which will bring together a range of activities carried out by 16- to 25yearolds. This will be coordinated by the new national agency for social cohesion and equality of opportunity (see above). Young people participating in this scheme will undergo a period of induction, during which training in areas such as civic values will be discussed. This could lead to a qualification in civic education. Scheme participants may subsequently be given help in finding work. The national agency for social cohesion and equality of opportunity will draw up a list of approved bodies that will work on this project. It may also finance some of the expenses that these bodies will incur in the areas of training and helping young people to find work.

The anonymous CV Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has encouraged employers to use anonymous CVs when recruiting staff, in order to avoid any discrimination in the process of interview selection. Anonymous CVs would not reveal the name or place of birth of the candidate and would carry no photograph. Proponents of the idea believe that this would make it easier for candidates from disadvantaged areas or of foreign origin to obtain a job interview. Anonymous CVs are sometimes used in anglo-saxon countries and the idea was mooted in France in 2004 by Claude Bebear, former president of the insurance group Axa, in a report given to the prime minister. It was then proposed, alongside other measures aimed at fighting discrimination, by the Fauroux report, given to labour minister Jean-Louis Borloo in July 2005. The idea has gained currency following a report issued by the Paris discrimination observatory that revealed the scale of the problem. The same CVs were sent to many different companies in two forms, one with a "standard" French name and the other with a North African name. In the first case, applicants received 144 invitations to an interview; in the second case, applicants received just 14. In the case where an applicant had a French name but lived in a disadvantaged area, 45 invitations to an interview were received. The prime minister has asked the French social partners to examine the idea of using anonymous CVs. Trade unions are generally in favour of this, although they stress that this is just one measure in a whole range of actions that can be taken to eliminate discrimination. They also believe that such a measure would be difficult to implement, particularly on a generalised basis. The CFDT has stated that all recruitment procedures need to be examined and overhauled. The CGT has stated that a pilot project in one French region has had positive results, although this was largely due to strong involvement at company level. The CGT also stressed that an anonymous CV system should not be an excuse for a company to "throw all the CVs into the bin after the interview" - engagement is needed along the entire recruitment process. A pilot project involving anonymous CVs has been in place at the Axa insurance group for 10 months. CVs can be submitted anonymously through its website, which receives 20,000 CVs a year. Management has stated that, so far, the process has resulted in pre-selection of more women, people from ethnic minority groups and workers over the age of 40. The company also claims that applications have increased by 15%, as people have more confidence to apply if it is on an anonymous basis. However, small and medium-sized companies have stated that, for them, such a measure is not practical.