France: Government proposes including diversity in "social balance sheets"

The French Government proposed to the social partners in December 2009 that large companies' statutory annual reports on their employment situation should in future include information on workforce diversity.

By law, companies with 300 or more employees must draw up each year a "social balance sheet" (bilan social), providing detailed information on the situation in the firm over the past three years with regard to:

• employment;
• remuneration;
• health and safety;
• working conditions;
• training;
• industrial relations; and
• the living conditions of employees and their families, to the extent that these depend on the company (for example, employers' contributions to housing and transport costs).