France’s lower house of Parliament voted Wednesday to relax rules governing the country’s 35-hour workweek, angering unions and leftist politicians.
The new rules would allow private-sector employees to work longer hours for more pay.
“They say it’s the worker who will choose how much to work, but they’re lying, because it’s always the employer who decides,” said Jean-Claude Mailly, secretary general of the national Force Ouvriere union.
The changes represent a major defeat for the Socialist Party, threatening to undo the centerpiece legislation put in place when it was last in power.
The 35-hour workweek has been celebrated for creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, though it has been blamed for hurting productivity.
Under current law, employers must compensate people who work more than 35 hours a week with extra vacation days.
French employers say that makes it harder to get things done and costs them money by forcing them to hire more people.
The revisions passed by the National Assembly on Wednesday maintain the 35-hour workweek but give workers the right to negotiate longer hours and to sell back to their employers the vacation days granted them in compensation.
The upper house of Parliament will consider the revisions next month.
