Up To Date france

France Telecom must instigate radical change in order to address the problems within its workforce, which has been plagued by a spate of suicides, a report claims.

The study, commissioned by the company’s management after it emerged that 43 employees had killed themselves since January 2008, made 107 recommendations after carrying out interviews with hundreds of employees.

The report, which was leaked to the International Herald Tribune, suggested the company call a halt to disruptive reorganisation, closely monitor psychosocial risk factors and introduce a network of internal mediators to help deal with employee issues.

France Telecom spokesman Jean Bernard Orsoni confirmed that the details contained in reports were correct but added: “We don’t have a magic wand that we can wave and just fix the problem in a few weeks.”

The news comes just a week after Stephane Richard took the helm at the beleaguered communications giant and sources say the new chief executive will need to move quickly in order to address the issues within the organisation, which is a quarter owned by the French state and as such exists in a  limbo between big business and civil service.

The new boos has already announced plans to simplify the company’s management structures and improve their human resources management.

The company will now be meeting with union representatives to discuss the implementation of the recommendations.

The report concluded that “It is indispensible that actions accompany the talk.”

The unemployment level in France rose to 10 per cent in the fourth quarter, bringing it to its highest level in a decade.

According to figures released by the country’s national statistics office, the French unemployment rate rose by 0.5 per cent in the least quarter, up from 9.5 per cent at the last calculation.

The number of people without jobs in France has not been as high as it is currently since 1999.

The unemployment figure in France has been climbing steadily for the past seven quarters, figures from Insee confirm, a development that will come as a knock to Nicolas Sarkozy’s government, after the president promised panel members and viewers  on a live television show in January that unemployment would begin to fall in the near future.

The broken promise has not gone unnoticed by the opposition who released a statement yesterday saying: “”Where is the drop in unemployment promised by Nicolas Sarkozy?”

The jump in unemployment is doubly disappointing for the French government who have deepened public debt in order to finance a €35 billion injection into the French economy in order to boost recovery from the recent credit crunch.

However finance minister Christine Largarde told reporters that despite the rise in joblessness, France continued to perform better than many other countries affected by the global financial turmoil.

The French president has asked oil giant Total for assurances that it will not close its refineries.

Nicolas Sarkozy met with the troubled company’s chief executive Christophe de Margerie yesterday in a bid to calm the continuing row over the future of the French workforce.

Total workers at French refineries have been taking part in ongoing strike action, which is threatening the country’s fuel supply.

The president’s intervention comes only weeks before French voters go to the polls in regional elections.

A spokesman for the French government issued a statement following the meeting saying: “The government wants Total to make commitments not to close its refining operations in the coming years.”

While the company head met with the country’s leader, Total bosses were in a nine hour negotiation with union bosses from the CGT –which has resulted in the suspension of the strike by their members.

Union spokesmen told reporters that “significant advances” had been made during the talks.

But members of the Sud union, most of whom are employed at Total’s Dunkirk base, have decline to call off the industrial action.

The ongoing strikes have led to panic buying by drivers, with queues forming at pumps as motorists attempt to ensure they do not run out of gas in coming days.

Service station company Elf yesterday confirmed that 249 of their branches had already suffered shortfalls in fuel supplies.

France’s top audit body has called on the country to tackle its public debt .

Agency Cour des Comptes has evaluated  French finances and warned that both debt and eficit must be tackled if the nation is to retain a top level credit rating.

And auditors warned that France could be caught unprepared if any new crisis emerges before measure are taken to tackle thee shortfall.

The report, published yesterday (WEDNESDAY) said: “Debt needs to be rapidly brought to a level that will allow room for manoeuvre, and it will be all the more difficult because the adjustment has been delayed.”

French public debt currently stands at 83.2 per cent of the gross domestic product and is expected to rise as high as 86.6 per cent by 2013.

The current deficit level is 8.2 per cent, which needs to be reduced to 3 per cent by 2013 in order to meet EU requirements.

And while politician claim that current spending plans will allow this level to be achieved, auditors warn that any underperformance in wages or receipts could easily upset the target and see deficit remaining near it’s current level right up until the deadline.

President Nicolas Sarkozy has publicly committed to a reduction in the debt and defecit but economists remain sceptical over when changed will be implemented.

Yesterday’s report said: “”For a long time France has been committed to reducing its deficit and public debt in its stability and growth programmes but the

The French and Swiss governments have reached an agreement over a tax treaty that had been threatened by the leaking of details of Swiss bank accounts.

France and Switzerland were in the throes of finalising a deal to prevent would-be French tax cheats from hiding funds in neighbouring Switzerland, when details of HSBC Swiss bank customers were leaked to the French government by a disgruntled former employee.

The French used the possession of the data, which included details of thousands of accounts held by French nationals, to encourage tax cheats to come forward and put their fiscal affairs in order.

But Swiss authorities demanded the return of the stolen information, putting a hold on the tax treaty and threatening to pull out if France did not cooperate.

But at the World Economic Summit in Davos yesterday, the two countries broke their deadlock, clearing the way for the agreement to go ahead as planned.

Swiss finance minister Hans-Rudolf Merx met with his French counterpart Eric Woerth to discuss the issue and emerged confident that the two countries would now go forward with their original plans.

Emerging from the meeting Mr Merz told reporters: “We have found an agreement. France has agreed not to use stolen data when asking for (tax) information.

A spokesman for the French budget ministry confirmed they would not be using the documents to seek further information from Switzerland but said the data would still be used in the prosecution of tax cheats already uncovered.

The French president has called for tighter business regulations at the World Economic Forum.

Giving the keynote address at the high profile event in Davos, Switzerland President Sarkozy warned that failure to crack down on exorbitant pay schedules and poor accounting could leave the global economy in serious trouble.

The French head of state told his global counterparts that it was their responisbilty to present a united front on financial issues and to devise a cohesive approach to issues affecting the global economy.

President Sarkozy praised the American president Barack Obama for his daring proposals which could see an end to  banks participation in risky practices such as hedge and private equity fund trading, and encouraged other countries to follow America’s lead.

The French leader said that a change could only result from global financial cooperation, which would need to support of the G20 nations.

Sarkozy told the political and business leaders of the worlds biggest and fastest growing economies that they would need to coordinate regulations in order for their actions to have an impact.

He said: “”President Obama is right when he says that banks must be dissuaded from engaging in proprietary speculation or financing speculative funds.

 ”But this debate cannot be confined to a single country, whatever its weight in global finance. This debate must be settled within the G20.”

The French financial industry is being pressured to close a legal loophole that allowed a British conman to swindle clients out of €1.8 million.

Warren Templeton set himself up as a financial advisor in the Dordogne offering money management guidance to locals and British ex-pats.

But clients who handed over cheques made out to the bank for investments had their money stolen because of a French law that allowed Templeton to counter sign the cheques and pay them into his own account.

Now politicians are calling for the Franch cheque loophole to be closed, bringing the country into line with its European neighbours.

Chair of the European Parliaments economic and monetary affairs committee, Sharon Bowles told the BBC that she felt the current rules were “worrying”.

She added: “There is a feeling now that people should operate from a common rule book. There is going to have to be more harmonisation for the defence of consumers.”

And the bank responsible for the depositing of the countersigned cheques seemed to concede that current regulations are not sufficient to prevent fraud.

A spokesman for Societe General said: “”Under French banking regulations, making a cheque out to a bank is authorised. Processing those cheques requires precautionary measures and our procedures incorporate this practice and necessary verifications.

The daily volume of cheques being processed means the verification procedure in place under French banking regulation is not always sufficient to stop a determined fraudster.”

French Finance minister Christine Lagarde has claimed that taxing bankers bonuses will raise €360million.

In an interview with Le Figaro yesterday (WEDNESDAY) Ms Lagarde said that the 50 per cent tax on bonuses paid to workers in the financial sector was intended to “send a signal to the banks” that had benefitted from state bail outs at the height of last year’s financial crisis.

The finance minister said that she hoped the industry would see the imposition of the tax as an incentive to deploy their fund elsewhere in ways that would boost the French economy, rather than using earnings to make overly generous awards to workers.

She said she hoped the banks would “use the capital they have to make loans and not pay out extravagant compensation.”

Reacting to criticism of the harsh tax, Ms Lagarde said that without state intervention last year, many banks would not have been able to continue trading and added: “In these conditions it is justified that the French get a share of these results.”

The finance minister confirmed that a large proportion of the funds raised by the extraordinary taxing measure would go into a government fund to help businesses.

The new tax rule is aimed at forcing financial institutions to change their compensation structures to reward employees’ long term performance rather than creating an incentive to enter into risky deals for the sake of short term compensation.

The move is one suggested in a French government report, which says the revenues could be used to bolster capital investment in legal online access to cultural resources.

The proposed tax, details of which remain scant, is another shot across the bows from the French government which is seeking to crack down on the way in which digital content is impacting on legitimate business in the country.

The announcement comes hot on the heels of France’s controversial “three strikes” internet law, which will seek to remove those guilty of illegal downloading and online piracy from the web by cutting their internet access.

Speaking last month, as internet giant Google fought a copyright case in the French courts over its scanning of French books for its online library,  President Nicolas Sarkozy pledged to defend French businesses from the drain of online content sharing and copyright theft saying: “”We are not going to be stripped of our heritage for the benefit of a big company, no matter how friendly, big or American it is.”

But internet bosses say the measures are short sighted and ill advised and may have an adverse effect on the country’s e-commerce.

Google France senior policy manager said: “We don’t think introducing an additional tax on internet advertising is the right way forward as it could slow down innovation.”

“The better way to support content creation is to find new business models that help consumers find great content and rewards artists and publishers for their work.”

Public debt in France has reached an all time high, following massive state spending during this year’s global credit crunch.

Figures released yesterday (WEDNESDAY) by France’s national office of statistics (INSEE) show the current national debt as being around €1.46tn – a figure that represents more than three quarters of the country’s economic output, as well as an increase of €29.4bn since June of this year.

The news comes just over a week after French president Nicola Sarkozy announced a massive €35billion injection into the French economy, aimed at strengthening the country’s position on the international trade stage.

Companies involved in areas such as nuclear energy are to benefit from a state subsidy allowing them to push forward plans to become global leaders in their field.

Other areas expected to benefit from the massive financial stimulus include digital technology, which has received vocal support for the French leader.

The increase debt has also been blamed on lower tax receipts during the financial crisis.

The French  national office of statistics has also predicted that French national public debt will continue to rise and could reach as high as 77.9 per cent of the counrty’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by the fourth quarter, with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicting it could soar as high as 96 per cent by 2014. This would put Frances debt level just below that of the UK, but above it’s European neighbours in Germany.