Working time and labour law, Gabriel Attal
Statutory working time: 4-day week where possible, with no decrease in monthly hours
Direction of change: change of another kind, or uncertain direction, compared with current law.
The lever. Weekly working time beyond which hours become overtime. It has been 35 hours since the Aubry laws. Direction rule: ↑ longer statutory working time.
« Cela passe par la promotion, là où c’est possible, de la semaine en quatre jours et une meilleure adaptation des horaires entre l’employeur et le salarié pour les rendre compatibles avec la situation personnelle, garde alternée, accompagnement d’un proche dépendant, tout en maintenant le nombre d’heures mensuelles et le bon fonctionnement de l’entreprise. »1Translation by the editorsThis involves promoting, where possible, the four-day week and better adapting working hours between employer and employee to make them compatible with personal circumstances, shared custody, caring for a dependent relative, while maintaining the number of monthly hours and the proper functioning of the business.
Encoding
No cost-schedule parameter for this position: see the costing for the reason.
Costing
Announced by the candidate
not announced
The programme does not cost this measure.
Published costings
none
No external costing of this position recorded to date.
Our calculation
lever that cannot be costed
Lever with no coefficient in the cost schedule: the position is compared, not costed.
Current law, sources and limits of the cost schedule
Current law. Statutory working time: 35 hours per week (Labour Code, Art. L3121-27), beyond which overtime applies.
Horizon. Not applicable.
Limits. Statically, the statutory working week has no direct cost for public finances. The effects (employment, wages, cost of public hiring at 32 hours, overtime) are behavioural. For the 32-hour week in the civil service or a 6th week of paid leave, no official costing has been read. The 2024 OFCE table cites €1.6bn per year (Montaigne 2022) for the 6th week, a distinct measure. To be treated as a dynamic effect, separately.
- OFCE, Programmes législatives 2024, NFP, 2024: « sixième semaine de congés payés : 30 Md€ / 1,6 Md€ par an (IM 2022) »
How to read these amounts. These are static costs and revenues, with no feedback effect, over a full year: nothing on growth, employment or the revenue that economic activity would gain or lose. A higher net cost does not on its own make a worse policy, nor net savings a better one: each programme rests on an economic model (demand-led stimulus, lower compulsory levies, consolidation of the public accounts…) that the cost schedule does not settle. GDP itself measures a volume of activity, not well-being or the usefulness of what is produced. Economic models and feedback effects.
- Programme, chantier capital Travail & salaires. Read the programme page.
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