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In January 2004, workers in the French entertainment industry continued their protests over a reform of the special unemployment insurance scheme for workers employed sporadically on fixed-term contracts in the sector. The changes came into effect at the beginning of the year, after the controversial June 2003 agreement instituting the reform was amended by the signatories in November 2003 and then enacted by the government.
A draft agreement signed on 27 June 2003 by three of the five representative trade union confederations and three employers’ organisations stiffened the criteria governing membership of the special unemployment insurance scheme for workers employed sporadically on fixed-term contracts in the cinema, stage and broadcasting sectors (intermittents du spectacle), and cut the benefit entitlement period (FR0307104F). On the union side, the deal was signed by the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (Confédération française démocratique du travail, CFDT), French Confederation of Christian Workers (Confédération française des travailleurs chrétiens, CFTC) and French Confederation of Managerial Staff-General Confederation of Managerial Staff (Confédération française de l'encadrement-Confédération générale des cadres, CFE-CGC), and on the employer side it was signed by the Movement of French Enterprises (Mouvement des entreprises de France, MEDEF), the General Confederation of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (Confédération générale des petites et moyennes entreprises, CGPME) and the Craftwork Employers' Association (Union professionnelle artisanale, UPA).
The agreement was initially approved by the Minister of Social Affairs in August 2003. However, in light of protests by the two non-signatory trade union confederations, the General Confederation of Labour (Confédération générale du travail, CGT) and General Confederation of Labour-Force Ouvrière (Confédération générale du travail-Force Ouvrière, CGT-FO), and a challenge they brought before the State Council Court (Conseil d’Etat) claiming that several provisions of the initial agreement were illegal, the signatory social partners met again on 13 November 2003 to rework the agreement, and made some minor changes. The new text was approved by the Minister of Social Affairs on 8 December 2003, just prior to the initial enforcement date of 1 January 2004.
Following a highly confrontational summer in 2003, which saw the cancellation of major cultural festivals, those groups opposed to the agreement continued their campaign after the revised deal was signed. CGT, the majority trade union in the live entertainment and radio and television broadcasting sectors, staged several demonstrations with the support of CGT-FO, and filed for the repeal of the official decrees implementing the new scheme before the State Council Court. Meanwhile, the Ile de France Coordinating Committee for Precarious Entertainment Industry Workers (Coordination des intermittents et précaires d’Ile de France, CIP-IDF) organised particularly intensive protests. This body was founded on 19 June 2003 by entertainment sector workers just a few days before the initial signature of the draft agreement. Its spectacular 'commando-style' tactics have included the interruption of television programmes, defacing advertising hoardings, sit-ins in public places, court challenges, setting up working parties on insecure employment and ore the drafting of counter-proposals on the entertainment industry unemployment benefit scheme. The Committee also took part in joint initiatives with CGT's entertainment workers' section (CGT-Spectacle) and the National Union of Stage Artists (Syndicat national des arts vivants, Synavi), which are planned to lead to the creation of a regional entertainment industry worker 'observatory'.
Faced with the scale and determination of the protest movement, the Minister of Culture decided to strengthen and implement a plan to tackle social security contribution fraud in the performing arts sector. He also commissioned several reports, one of which took stock of the use of temporary labour in the public television and radio sector. The 'Gourinchas report' recently submitted to the Minister - named after its author, the president of the Association of Public Radio and Television Broadcasting Employers (Association des employeurs du service public de l’audiovisuel) - confirmed the frequent use of casual workers in the sector (representing 21% of jobs). The report criticised the excessive use of temporary workers in specific areas (particularly television news broadcasting) but justified the practice in most others. It dismissed, with supporting figures, the notion that public radio and television broadcasting services were the main cause of the deficit in the entertainment industry unemployment benefit scheme. The report especially urged the social partners to consider a new type of contract tailored to the specific nature of the sector and very similar to the 'mission contract' advocated by MEDEF and recommended by the recent 'Virville report' on simplification of the Labour Code (FR0401110F). To add to these various initiatives, the Senate has created an informal task force to look at employment in the stage entertainment sector and the National Assembly has set up a parliamentary fact-finding committee on artists.