After all, although the president signed the document, he ordered two of its most controversial provisions to be changed: reduce the validity period of the first employment contract for young people from two years to one year, and oblige the employer to inform the young specialist of the reason for his dismissal.
On the one hand, formally, the Equal Opportunities Law came into force last Sunday – from the moment it was published in the government gazette Journal Officiel. On the other hand, Jacques Chirac said that he "asked the government to immediately prepare two amendments to the law." Therefore, in the president's opinion, "the time has come to defuse the situation." But students and trade unions have already held mass protests throughout France.
On March 28, hundreds of thousands of students had already taken to the streets of French cities. Trade unions supported them with a one-day work stoppage; transport workers, metallurgists, energy workers, communications workers, and bankers did not work.
Among the protesters were also those who had participated in the unrest of autumn 2005. They clashed with police with the same energy, set fire to cars, and tried to vandalize institutions. Notably, the protesters were indirectly supported by Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy. The main rival of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin in the 2007 presidential election called on the government and student activists to sit down at the negotiating table.
The essence of the problem is not the Equal Opportunities Law as such, but the provision it contains on the first employment contract. In the original version, this provision stated that the employer has the right, during the first two years of work, to dismiss an employee under the age of 26 without prior notice and without stating reasons. Now, as we see, Jacques Chirac has promised to reduce this period to one year. But the leader of the main French student union, Bruno Julliard, responded to the president, who tried to please both students and his prime minister: "We do not want to negotiate. We do not want this law at all. The president had a chance to give a clear answer, but he missed it."
The government of Dominique de Villepin explained the labor law reform by the need to combat youth unemployment. Today the unemployment rate among French people aged 18 to 25 is a record 22%. In the Paris suburbs, it reaches 40%.
However, students at French universities believed that now, during the first two years of their working life, they would be "in the position of slaves." The employer would be able to easily fire them. As the president of the French League of Human Rights, Jean-Pierre Dubois, said in an interview with Vremya Novostey, "economic and social rights in modern European society must be recognized and guaranteed as reliably as civil and political rights." First, these rights are among the fundamental ones enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other UN documents. Second, "the European Union (of which France was one of the architects) was created primarily for economic and social purposes." So, Dubois believes, "the fate of labor legislation in other EU countries largely depends on the resolution of the current conflict."
But the government has secured serious legal support. After all, Jacques Chirac's cautious approval of the law came only after the Constitutional Council of France gave a positive verdict. It consists of ten experts. There are nine lawyers, three are appointed by the president, and three each are appointed by the chairmen of both chambers of parliament. The tenth is former President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. Last week, the Constitutional Council fully supported the Equal Opportunities Law, including the first employment contract, after examining it for compliance with the requirements of the French constitution and EU laws.