The French presidential elections and the death of social dialogue

What role do trade unions have to play in the French presidential election? As Nick Parsons writes, when François Hollande won the last presidential election in 2012, he promised to establish a ‘social dialogue’ under which actors such as trade unions would be consulted over government policy. But the failure of this strategy, underlined by the extensive protests held over a new labour law in 2016, may leave trade unions resigned to oppositional mobilisation or increasing marginalisation from French political life, regardless of which candidate wins the upcoming election

Macron’s victory: a historic break with the past, or simply the postponement of real change?

Emmanuel Macron’s En Marche! movement will attempt to win a majority in the French legislative elections in June, but if he fails to achieve this, his power to implement substantial policy changes may be limited. Nick Parsons writes that winning the presidency was a relatively easy task in comparison to what he will face in June, and that Marine Le Pen will be ready to capitalise on any disaffection should he fail to live up to his campaign pledges

Macron won a huge majority, but he is supported by only one in five voters

Emmanuel Macron’s La République En Marche (LREM) completed their victory of the French legislative elections on 18 June, although the size of the majority was not as large as had been predicted following the first round of voting a week earlier. Nick Parsons highlights that although Macron can now claim legitimacy to push forward with a number of ambitious reforms, his position may be weaker than it appears due to the high rate of abstentions in the election and potential opposition from within his own party

Macron looks set for a huge majority, but does he have popular support?

Emmanuel Macron’s La République En Marche (LREM) are set to win a large majority in the French parliament following the first round of legislative elections on 11 June. Nick Parsons suggests that while few can question Macron’s victory, the low turnout in the election also raises questions about the health of French democracy. Far-reaching reforms may ultimately be initiated by a president with a large parliamentary majority, but a relatively small level of popular support

Macron gambles on reducing unemployment through greater flexibility for employers

French President Emmanuel Macron has pledged to reform France's labour market regulations, but his proposals have been met with opposition from some political figures and trade unions. Nick Parsons explains that against the backdrop of falling popularity, Macron is essentially gambling that by giving employers greater flexibility, he can push down the country's unemployment rate

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

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

Left parties and trade unions in France

Historically, the supposed independence of unions from parties in France has been a myth, with the development of close relations between the CGT and the PCF, on the one hand, and looser ones between the CFDT in particular and the PS, on the other. These links weakened from the 1980s on, but appeared to be re-established, with some changes, when unions backed François Hollande in the 2012 presidential elections. The decline of the PCF and the rallying of unions behind Hollande appeared to signal the possibility of a social democratic bloc in France. However, in reality, this is a temporary and unstable phenomenon as few mutual benefits can be assured by either unions or the Socialist Party through the creation of more stable union–party links. The explanations for this are structural, ideational and contingent

DISCUS: the distributed core for ubiquitous broadband access

A new end to end architecture based on Long-Reach Passive Optical Network (LR-PON) with wireless integration, a distributed core built of optical transparency islands and an OpenFlow-based control plane, which is being developed in the EU project DISCUS, is described in this paper. The main technological advances and the network modelling and optimization approach are reported

Eliciting public preferences for managing the public rights of way

Public Rights of Way (PROW) in England and Wales, provides a wide range of social and economic benefits to those other than owners of land. The protection and extension of PROW are an important way of encouraging people to engage in informal enjoyment of urban and rural areas, with beneficial consequences for health and welfare. In urban areas they provide networks of mobility and interaction for people at the community level, helping to reduce reliance on motorised transport. In the rural context they define access to the countryside, critically linked to recreation and tourism, as well as providing mobility networks for local residents. This study describes the use of a Choice Experiment (CE) to derive monetary estimates the social benefits of PROW in an English county.Choice Experiments, Public Rights of Way, Willingness to Pay, Land Economics/Use, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,