Full text: Chirac's labour law speech

Chirac said it was "time to resolve the situation"

The text of French President Jacques Chirac's speech on the controversial youth employment law, broadcast on French television on 31 March 2006:

My dear compatriots, for several weeks now, questions, concerns and criticisms have been raised about the First Employment Contract.

Many young people have expressed their anxieties, their need for security, but also their desire to fit into our society - sentiments that many of you obviously share.

Aside from the First Employment Contract, the period that we are living through is leading us to re-examine some profound questions: the future that we are offering to young people, our capacity to make our social model work in today's world, the question of reform and our ability to implement it together.

I want to say to the French people, I want to say to the young people, that I understand the impatience of all those who want to work and succeed and yet who cannot manage to gain a foothold in business even though they have so much energy, plans and talent to bring to bear.

Of course, I also understand their rejection of a lack of job security, which has been virulently expressed.

I wanted the government to leave no stone unturned in working for equal opportunities, thinking, first and foremost, about all the young people who, owing to inadequate training, are in practice deprived of any chance of getting a first job and who despair about being able to make their own way in life.

This is the aim of the law on equal opportunities, of which the First Employment Contract is just one element.

'Pretexts for violence'

With this contract, the Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, wanted to offer all these young people new employment opportunities: to get into business, to be able to prove themselves there, to obtain real professional experience with a proper job contract.

To do this, the government strove to accommodate more flexibility for businesses, but also new guarantees for employees.

I have... heard the concerns expressed by many young people Jacques Chirac

For several weeks now, dialogue has not produced any results and the situation has been deadlocked over the question of whether to withdraw or keep this law.

The demonstrations have served as a pretext for acts of violence and unacceptable vandalism.

Tension has been high between students who want to strike and those who want to study.

A significant number of secondary schools are closed or blockaded.

It is time to resolve the situation while being fair and reasonable, and keeping, as an absolute requirement, our national interests at heart.

This is the mission given to me by the constitution.

The parliament, the nation's elected officials, have passed the law on equal opportunities and the Constitutional Council has just ruled that this law complies in every way with the principles and values of the Republic.

In democracy, that means something and must be respected.

That is why I have decided to promulgate this law, but also because I think that the First Employment Contract can be an effective instrument for employment.

But I have also heard the concerns expressed by many young people and their parents and I want to respond to them.

This is why I am asking the government to prepare immediately two modifications to the law, on the points which have given rise to debate: the [trial] period of two years will be reduced to one year, and if a contract is terminated, the right of young workers to know the reasons will be written into the new law.

Finally, I am asking the government to take all the necessary measures to ensure that, in practice, no contract can be signed without incorporating, in full, all these modifications.

'Move forward'

I am going to address the employers and trade unions.

Students want nothing short of the law to be scrapped

I understand their sense of responsibility. I understand their commitment to employment. I understand their attachment to the values of the French Republic. I understand their desire to give constructive dialogue in our country its full weight.

I call on them, along with the representatives of the students' and school pupils' organisations, to take their full part in drawing up these new provisions.

I want to tell them that the time has come to move forward together.

We must work to put an end to this shocking situation in which companies, because they fear excessive rigidity, opt to turn down an order or relocate rather than to recruit, when so many people are stuck in unemployment and uncertainty, but we must also respond to employees' aspirations to greater security in a working world which is undergoing constant change.

It is the whole challenge of the great undertaking of providing greater security for career paths and fighting uncertainty that I am asking the government to take on, along with the employers and unions.

Many students have also voiced real concerns about the value of their degrees, the availability of work, their future.

Universities must remain a place of excellence and the path to real social success.

I am asking the prime minister and the government to open up a great national debate regarding the links between universities and jobs in order to ease young people's way into employment.

'For the future'

My dear compatriots, it is young people I am thinking of first and foremost this evening.

They are the strength, the dynamism, the enthusiasm, the future of the nation.

It is for them that we have a duty to take resolute action against the scourge of unemployment, of which they are the biggest victims, because employment is obviously what is at stake and the worst solution would be to do nothing.

For 11 months now unemployment has been falling.

It is at this time that we must make a decisive effort together to win this battle which is vitally important to the future of our country and our children.

In the Republic, when it is a matter of national interest, there should be neither winners nor losers.

We should now join together and each party in their own position must act responsibly.

Long live the Republic and long live France.

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