For safety reasons, the Parisian department store La Samaritaine closed down on 30 April 2005; the site is due to reopen in 2011 (*FR0508101N* [1]). The closure was decided by the Louis Vuitton – Moët Hennessy (LVMH [2]) group, which has owned the store since 2001. The LVMH group decision took both
The reform of the public employment placement service, which was introduced in January 2005 with the Social Cohesion Law (*FR0409104F* [1]), put an end to the National Employment Agency’s (Agence nationale pour l’emploi, ANPE [2]) legal monopoly over placement services for unemployed people. The
La Samaritaine, a Parisian department store with iconic status, closed for an unspecified period in June 2005. Safety work being carried out is said to make it impossible for the store to re-open in less than 6 years. Its 1,500 workers have been left in limbo.
In April 2005, French employers' organisations and four out of five trade union confederations concluded an intersectoral agreement on the introduction of a new 'personalised back-to-work assistance agreement' (CRP) scheme to retrain and find new jobs for employees who are made redundant. The scheme
In 2003, the Perrier mineral-water company (part of the Nestlé group) announced 350 job losses in France through early retirement (the fourth round of redundancies in recent years) and signed an agreement on the issue with two minority trade unions. The majority union at the company, CGT, decided to
In April 2004, the Marseille local court ruled in favour of 35 unemployed people whose benefits from the UNEDIC insurance scheme had been cut or even stopped at the beginning of 2004 as a result of an agreement signed by the social partners in 2002. Their full entitlement is to be restored after an
On 1 January 2004, legislation came into force in France introducing a new 'minimum employment income' (RMA) scheme and decentralising the existing 'minimum integration income' (RMI) benefit and assistance programme for people facing labour market difficulties.
A reform of France's /UNEDIC/ unemployment insurance scheme agreed by employers' organisations and three trade union confederations in December 2002 will substantially restrict unemployment benefit entitlements when new eligibility rules come into force on 1 January 2004. In mid-2003, UNEDIC issued
The French government is due to propose legislation after the summer 2003 parliamentary recess reforming the 'minimum integration income' (RMI) benefit and assistance scheme for people facing labour market difficulties. Much of the responsibility for the scheme is to be decentralised to local level
In December 2002, French employers' organisations and three of the five nationally representative trade union confederations - CFDT, CFE-CGC and CFTC - renewed their agreement on the jointly managed UNEDIC unemployment insurance scheme. With UNEDIC in financial crisis, the accord seeks to balance