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Social dialogue under the shadow of the EU: the failure of Hollande’s social conferences

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French Politics Aims and scope

Abstract

Annual tripartite social conferences were introduced in France in 2012, pre-empting EU ambitions to reinvigorate the social dialogue at EU and national levels. Despite some successes, they did not live up to their ambitions to elicit consensus and give trade unions a voice in policymaking due to: opposition to, and protest against, government policy from some unions; the avoidance of discussion on contentious legislation; and the constraints of the Country Specific Recommendations arising out of the European Semester. The French experience of social dialogue suggests that the chances of the EU achieving its ambition of building consensus over economic and social reform through reinvigorating the social dialogue appear slim.

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Notes

  1. The organisations that participated in this study are the radical left unions: Confédération générale du travail (CGT), Force Ouvrière (FO), Fédération des syndicats unifiée (FSU), Union syndicale solidaire (USS) also known as Solidaires; reformist unions: Confédération française démocratique du travail (CFDT), Confédération française des travailleurs chrétiens (CFTC), Union nationale des syndicats autonomes (UNSA); and employer organisations: Mouvement des Entreprises de France (MEDEF) and Union des entreprises de proximité (U2P).

  2. Such fora include national committees on issues such as collective bargaining, employment and training, pensions and the bipartite management of social security funds.

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  1. School of Modern Languages, Cardiff University, 66a Park Place, Cardiff, CF10 3AS, UK

    Nick Parsons

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Parsons, N. Social dialogue under the shadow of the EU: the failure of Hollande’s social conferences. Fr Polit 17, 135–158 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41253-019-00085-7

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