Pipe dream that’s left France in doldrums

A MANDATORY four-day week has long been popular with Left-wing academics.

As well as giving workers more time off, the theory is that it would increase employment by forcing firms to hire more staff if they want to stay open. But in many of the cases where it has been tried, the policy has proved a costly failure.

France’s socialist government adopted a 35-hour week in 1998. It saddled large numbers of firms with hefty extra bills, by forcing them to pay higher overtime rates to any workers who stay beyond the allotted limit.

This is thought to have contributed to France’s sluggish economy, which repeatedly lagged behind European rivals.

And for professionals, the policy was largely avoided through loopholes which allowed employees to continue working as normal.

In other cases, individual companies have decided to introduce short weeks – but found it cost them dearly.

In his report, Lord Robert Skidelsky highlights the case of Nottingham restaurant Sat Bains, which moved to a four-day system and lost £100,000 due to reduced opening hours. The crossbench peer warned that this kind of cost could make many businesses go bust, saying: ‘It is evident that not all companies in the hospitality industry would be able to cope with this level of financial burden.’ In another case, health research charity Wellcome this year considered moving to four days but decided it would be too complicated.

Lord Skidelsky said: ‘The introduction of a shorter working week has been successful in a small number of companies, predominantly where it can be implemented without the need to hire more staff.

‘However, for many other companies this would not be the case.’

French President Emmanuel Macron is seeking to reform the country’s stagnant labour market in the face of opposition from unions, and has encouraged incentives which push workers to stay later.

He is also cracking down on civil servants after a study in March found one third of them have special contracts allowing them to work even less than 35 hours.