Under Strain, France Examines Its Safety Net
By ALISSA J. RUBIN

ST.-ÉTIENNE, France — Patrick Jouve, the owner of a game store on the Rue Louis Braille here, assails the government regulations that limit the size of the bright chess set and bouncing balls he has painted on his storefront. If the painting covers more than 36 feet, it constitutes advertising and he has to pay a fee of $1,350.

At 57, Mr. Jouve, is, however, looking forward to the generous government pension that will help pay for his planned retirement in the countryside at 62.

Down the street, Virginie Chargros, a baker’s wife, depends on the $404 monthly “family subsidy” she gets from the government to help raise the couple’s three children. She and her husband work six days a week and bring in about $2,200 a month, but without the subsidy, they would have trouble providing the family with “small pleasures,” she said.

The pervasive presence of government in French life, from workplace rules to health and education benefits, is now the subject of a great debate as the nation grapples with whether it can sustain the post-World War II model of social democracy.

The spiraling costs of cradle-to-grave social welfare programs have all but exhausted the French government’s ability to raise the taxes necessary to pay for it all, creating growing political problems for President François Hollande, a Socialist. The nation’s capability to innovate and compete globally is being called into question, and investors are shying away from the layers of government regulation and high taxes.

But on the streets of this midsize city 325 miles southeast of Paris, the discussion is not abstract or even overtly political. Conversations here bring to life how many people, almost unconsciously, tailor their education, work habits and aspirations to benefits they see as intrinsic elements of their lives.

“You cannot take away guns from Americans, and in the same way you cannot take away social benefits from French people,” said Louis Paris, the 25-year-old son of a couple who live on the Rue Louis Braille, a typical neighborhood in St.-Étienne, which has deep working-class roots and historically has leaned Socialist.

“They won’t stand for it,” said Mr. Paris, who is unemployed and has been searching since leaving college for a full-time job that offers benefits.

This reality on the Rue Louis Braille, named for the Frenchman who invented the system of raised lettering for the blind, helps explain why successive French leaders have made only modest changes in social benefits.

One of the largest buildings on the relatively prosperous-looking first block of the street is the local office for state-financed health benefits. The second block has eight empty storefronts, testimony to the last four years of economic downturn.

The median household income in the city is $25,000, about half the national figure for the United States and slightly lower than the average for France. But that figure does not capture how many things the government pays for here.

In France, most child care and higher education are paid for by the government, and are universally available, as is health care, three of the most costly elements in the budgets of most American families.

The cost of health care in France is embedded in the taxes imposed on workers and employers; workers make mandatory contributions worth about 10 percent of their paycheck to cover health insurance and a total of about 22 percent to pay for all their benefits.

The payroll tax for employers can amount to as much as 48 percent, meaning that for an employee paid $1,000 a month, the cost to the employer would be $1,480, according to French government figures.

For that, the employee gets up to two years of government-paid unemployment insurance. Parents get a monthly payment for each child after the first, starting at $176 for their second child, and most salaried workers are required to take five weeks of vacation, although professionals and those who own businesses, as do many on the Rue Louis Braille, take far less.

The political opposition to even modest cuts in social programs has been intense. Mr. Hollande’s predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, a conservative, reduced some social security payments, narrowed the criteria for obtaining unemployment and minimum income benefits and made other proposals he was unable to implement in the face of protests that sometimes drew hundreds of thousands of people into the streets.

Mr. Hollande is facing stiff opposition for a proposal that would require people to work 18 months longer before qualifying for retirement benefits.

The tension between the pressure for budget cuts and the deeply embedded nature of government programs is playing out in individual lives.

Sarah Revet, 31, who lives on Rue Louis Braille, was able to go back to work in a local government office after having children because of a public program that allowed her get a degree that she could use to work in local government. She also had government-subsidized preschool for her 3-year-old and received the government’s family payments, which helped her to afford a babysitter for her 1-year-old.

But when she was laid off because of budget cuts, she did not qualify for unemployment benefits because her job had been part time and temporary.

Yet, she still believes in a government system that ensures that the poor, especially, have an ample safety net.

“I would absolutely make the choice to continue this,” Ms. Revet said.

Just down the street, Mr. Jouve, the owner of the game store Tapis Vert, or Green Carpet, believes that the reason the government is in such dire straits is that there are too many civil servants. Government spending accounts for about 56 percent of France’s gross domestic product, in contrast to 44 percent in Germany and 40 percent in the United States, according to Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics arm.

“There are too many government functionaries,” Mr. Jouve said as he demonstrated magic tricks to a customer. Referring to the city officials who come to measure the dimensions of his storefront painting, he said, “They make up jobs for themselves.”

The mayor, Maurice Vincent, said that there were only 3,500 city employees, but acknowledged that the number did not include the police, the hospital staff, the university’s professors and staff members, and the civil servants who work for the greater metropolitan area. Add those, and the government-paid workers top 25,000.

Mr. Vincent’s office also has several thousand workers on “temporary” contracts of less than three years; the positions were created when unemployment in St.-Étienne reached 17 percent, he said.

Yet small business owners here, along with many employers large and small across the country, say they cannot afford to hire more workers because of the mandatory 48 percent in payroll taxes on top of wages.

Mireille Rogers, who lives on the Rue Louis Braille, runs the Babet Center, a nonprofit social service organization supported by the government that serves one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods.

Since most of the center’s clients live in an area where at least one in four young people are jobless, they see government aid as a necessity.

“I would be glad to pay more in payroll taxes so that there would be more for others,” Ms. Rogers said.

Some people at the center receive an income supplement from the government to ensure that they have a minimum amount to live on. In September, that was $1,664 for a single person and about $3,100 for a family of four with children over the age of 3. Some people also qualify for a housing subsidy and other benefits.

“The state has put in place a system,” said Salvatore Garaffa-Botta, a butcher and the deputy secretary of the largest union in St.-Étienne, the C.G.T. “But we are also slaves to this system.”

賦稅加無可加 法國社福危險了？

法國人一向以擁有「從搖籃到墳墓」的整套社會福利措施而自豪，然而現在碰到經濟衰退及財政吃緊，賦稅卻已加無可加，不僅使法國的債信評等頻遭調降，也使主政的社會黨總統歐蘭德的處境日益吃緊。

紐約時報指出，法國政府與民眾日常生活的關係十分緊密，從工作場所法規，到健康及教育福利，幾乎無所不在。但優渥的福利必須靠高賦稅支持；稅負太重加上法規繁瑣，不但使投資人紛紛逃離法國，更讓法國的創新及競爭能力備受質疑。

法國中等家庭年收入約二萬五千美元（約合台幣七十五萬元），只有美國的一半，但這個數字無法顯示法國政府為民眾支付多少福利。法國大部分的幼兒照顧及高等教育費用都由政府埋單，還有全民健保。勞工如果失業，兩年內都能領到失業給付。父母生育第二個子女後，每月就能領一百七十六美元（約台幣五千元）的補貼，大部分勞工一年有五周的支薪休假。

這些福利主要靠薪資稅支持。勞工薪資總額的百分之廿二都用於支付各項社會福利，其中健保費約占薪資的百分之十。雇主需負擔的薪資稅，最高可達薪資額的百分之四十八；亦即勞工月薪如果是一千美元，雇主實際須支出一四八○美元。

法國政府即便只是小幅減少社會福利，也會遭遇強大的反對聲浪。前總統沙克吉曾經將領取失業給付及最低所得補貼的資格緊縮，並提出削減社福計畫，便引發數十萬民眾上街抗議。現在歐蘭德也因為打算將領取退休福利的年齡延後十八個月，面臨強力反對。

廿五歲的青年巴里士表示：「你不能奪走美國人的槍，同樣也無法奪走法國人的社會福利。老百姓絕對無法忍受。」

然而，法國的中小企業主以及許多雇主都表示已無能力增雇員工，因為他們在支付薪資之外，還要負擔百分之四十八的薪資稅。工會幹部加拉法─波塔表示：「國家實施這套福利制度，我們成為這套制度的奴隸。」

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/world/europe/as-costs-rise-french-grapple-with-their-safety-nets.html

2013-11-09．聯合報．A22．國際．編譯任中原