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In February 2003, workers employed sporadically on fixed-term contracts in the French cinema, stage and broadcasting sectors held a strike and demonstrations to defend their special unemployment insurance scheme. The scheme, which has a large deficit, has been regularly challenged by employers.
Over the past 10 years or so, the special unemployment insurance scheme for workers employed sporadically on fixed-term contracts in the cinema, stage and broadcasting sectors (intermittents du spectacle) has been regularly challenged by employers’ associations, especially the Movement of French Enterprises (Mouvement des entreprises de France, MEDEF).
The Multi-employer Intermittent Cinema Management and Technical Employee Scheme (Régime de salarié intermittent à employeurs multiples pour les techniciens et cadres du cinéma) was set up in 1936. Special provisions - appendices 8 (technical employees and cinema, television and radio workers) and 10 (stage performing artists and technical employees) - under the jointly managed general unemployment insurance scheme, the National Union for Employment in Industry and Commerce (Union nationale pour l'emploi dans l'industrie et le commerce, UNEDIC) were implemented in 1969. Every three years since then, these appendices governing the situation of entertainment industry performing artists and technical employees have had to be renegotiated by the social partners (FR9704143N). These provisions currently set the requirement for one year’s entitlement to unemployment benefit at 507 hours of work or 43 'fees' (each fee being counted as equivalent to eight hours). Although the scheme is widely recognised as one of the essential factors in France’s dynamic artistic and creative scene, MEDEF is critical of its growing deficit, which has trebled in the space of 10 years and is estimated in a confidential report by the Court of Auditors (Cour des comptes) to stand at EUR 738 million. Under the cross-sectoral support principle, this deficit is subsidised by the general UNEDIC scheme.
The most recent agreement was on the entertainment unemployment insurance scheme was concluded 10 January 2002 by the main employers’ associations and trade unions, with the exception of the General Confederation of Labour (Confédération générale du travail, CGT), the majority union in the sector, and the General Confederation of Labour-Force Ouvrière (Confédération générale du travail-Force Ouvrière, CGT-FO). It extended the scheme and provided for the doubling of employer and employee contributions to 7.4% and 4.2% of pay respectively from 1 September 2002 (FR0210104N). This agreement led to protests by sectoral unions and employers’ associations in September 2002, resulting in implementation of the agreement being postponed. Intermittently employed entertainment industry workers thus demonstrated their attachment to appendices 8 and 10 of the UNEDIC general insurance scheme, against the backdrop of a reduced state culture budget, which has now fallen below the symbolic 1% level. Early in 2003, the CGT-affiliated stage and broadcasting workers federation called a one-day strike to defend the specific entertainment industry unemployment insurance scheme. This call was widely heeded and resulted in many demonstrations being held on 25 February 2003 in Paris and elsewhere in France.