With their love of a long holiday, a coveted 35-hour working week and the “right to disconnect” from office-related communication, many countries may gaze with envy at French working life.
But a central tenet to what many in France would call a hard-fought right, is now at risk as authorities aim to curb a record rate of absenteeism that is costing the country billions more than its neighbours.
François Bayrou, the centrist at the head of the minority government since December, has declared war on malingering as part of his drive to “reconcile the French with work” — and save the country from looming bankruptcy.
François Bayrou is aiming to discourage unwarranted sick leave
MOHAMMED BADRA/EPA
The French absentee level is one of Europe’s highest and about double that of Britain and the United States. The cost is estimated at up to €80 billion, more than the state education budget.
Nearly 6 per cent of employees in the private sector are off sick at any time, after a 40 per cent rise in absenteeism over the past five years. The figures are higher for the state sector, which employs over 20 per cent. Between 2014 and 2022, there was a 79 per cent rise in public servants taking sick leave. People staying off work for “psycho-social” conditions have soared since the pandemic, especially among women, who have higher absentee rates than men.
In the latest of two decades of government efforts to change attitudes, Bayrou appealed to the French to end their denial and accept that “the French do not work enough”. The country has fewer people working than its neighbours and spends the most on benefits, “yet the French are increasingly dissatisfied with their public services and we are the most pessimistic country in the world”, he said in a speech presenting his cost-cutting package last week.
Inspectors found that half of all people on long-term medical leave of 18 months lacked justification, the prime minister said.
Bayrou’s austerity plans, which include scrapping two public holidays, prompted a furious reaction from right and leftwing opposition parties and they are deplored by 60 per cent of the public, according to polls.
Measures to discourage unjustified leave will include pressure on doctors to stop handing out certificates for trivial or non-existent symptoms to please patients and a cap of two weeks for “arrêt maladie” that GPs can prescribe. People off work will also have to tell employers the medical condition that they are suffering from. This is aimed at a craze for claiming “le burn-out” and its newer English import “le bore-out”.
Curbs are to be placed on the system of generous state benefits that start after three days off work for the private sector and one day for state workers. The government favours raising the waiting period to a week but is wary. Civil servants took to the streets when the last government tried to curb their sick benefits, extending their short waiting period from its current one day.
As Bayrou made clear, a cultural change is needed to shift attitudes that have been ingrained since the emergence of one of the world’s most generous welfare states in the 1950s.
Barely 7 per cent of employees in France say they feel committed to their work compared with 33 per cent in the United States, according to a 2023 Gallup survey.
Plans to encourage a sense of involvement include changing what one expert called “the French management model, which is hyper-present and controlling”. Employees have to feel valued and useful, Benoît Serre, a former deputy head of the National Association of Human Resources Directors, told le Figaro newspaper.
Unions have accused the government of trying to “destroy the health of the French” with the crackdown on sick leave. The fate of the new measures will hang on the government’s survival when Bayrou puts his unpopular 2026 budget to a parliamentary vote in the autumn. Rejection will bring down the government, forcing President Macron to call the third snap parliamentary elections in two years.