With the economy sliding towards recession, France's centre-right government is losing patience with the 35-hour workweek law it has been saddled with since ousting the Socialists from power 18 months ago.
With anger mounting about an inherited law the Right has always accused of smothering growth, centre-right reformer Herve Novelli yesterday demanded a parliamentary inquiry into the economic effects of the cut in the working week.
A recent survey found most people are tired of a system that leaves them out of pocket and struggling to get their work done in less time than they are used to. "Everybody, for the most part, finds the effects of the 35-hour week to be disastrous, including the labour minister," UMP party member Novelli told yesterday's Le Figaro newspaper.
"A full assessment, in precise figures, of the 35-hour week has not been done. So let's seize the problem and look for an economically and socially viable solution."
The 35-hour week was introduced by left-wing former prime minister Lionel Jospin five years ago amid rose-tinted visions of a society with lower unemployment and more leisure time.
But with unemployment at 9.6 per cent and wage freezes common, 36 per cent of the French want the system scrapped and 18 per cent want it suspended, a survey by pollster CSA showed.
Many blamed the 35-hour week for decimating staff numbers in hospitals in August, contributing to 15,000 heatwave deaths.
Labour Minister Francois Fillon has already watered down the 35-hour week law, raising the legal limit on overtime.
But rightists want more. The economy is on the brink of recession, the jobless rate has been on a steady upwards path since a low of 8.6 per cent in mid-2001, and an estimated €13 billion lost in labour taxes will add to the state deficit next year.
"At some point or another, we are going to have to lift this lid which is smothering France's dynamism," Le Figaro quoted a government minister as saying anonymously.
Critics of the 35-hour week, brainchild of former labour minister Martine Aubry, lament its failure to create jobs.
Supporters say it preserved or created up to 450,000 jobs, but economists say any job creation was artificial and state funded, and any genuine new hiring was due to economic growth.
"It has created higher labour costs and a real management problem in companies. It is paralysing the economy like removing oxygen," said Morgan Stanley economist Eric Chaney.
Mr Fillon told the Senate this week that Socialist policies had not prevented unemployment rising as soon as growth slowed. "We have five years to rectify 20 years of mistakes," Finance Minister Francis Mer told the same Senate session.
The CSA survey, published in L'Expansion magazine last month, found 67 per cent of the French felt the 35-hour week was no use at fighting unemployment. A majority also felt the law gave French companies an unfair disadvantage.
Mr Fillon said last week he wanted to revamp the job market further to make it "more fluid, more open and more efficient".
But unions warned they would oppose any changes to 35-hour week accords with companies, which have handed many employees extra holidays in exchange for the hours they work over 35.
"The question is how they can overturn it," Mr Chaney said. "Workers are angry they get no more paid overtime, and top managers are living a nightmare, with half their staff on days off. But the middle tier is enjoying 10 weeks of holiday - once you've given that to them, how do you take it away?"