Jobs Act and French Labor Market Reform: So Similar and yet so Different

In France a labor market reform was recently approved that is often referred to as the "French Jobs Act". Indeed the very French Prime Minister Valls has explicitly evoked the Italian Jobs Act when submitting the draft reform, explains Stefano Liebman, (Department of Law Studies) in a video (in Italian).

The similarities between the Italian and the French experiences are indeed significant. Layoffs are made substantially simpler, rather than easier, especially layoffs for economic reasons, along the lines of the Italian law. Unlike what the Renzi Government plans to do, there is a strong incentive to collective bargaining's decentralization. And there is a very significant intervention, for the French standards, on working hours, pointing to overcome the 35-hour week - one of the myths of post-Mitterrand France. If these are the similarities, why are French reactions so much more significant?

The point is that in Italy we have already had the experience of the Monti Government, that has already had a significant impact on the topic, at such a time, that intervention in the labor market seemed to somehow be necessary. The Jobs Act intervenes later and refers only to new contracts: it is aimed at those who did not have a job and could supposedly land one through the Jobs Act. To this possible explanation of the different reactions, one must add the coup of the French Government, which, taking advantage of an article of the Constitution, passed the law without a parliamentary vote.