What would real reforms in France entail?

There is cause to be concerned about the disorderly nature of the economic policy programme being implemented in France: some taxes have been cut, others have been hiked ; zero-sum transfers have been made between various social groups (between pensioners and workers); polic ies with unintended incentive effects have been implemented (tax breaks on overtime pay); fiscal deficits have been reduced, as usual, by trimming public spending at the margins where it is easiest to do so; the reforms that are being implemented (labour market, training, etc.) do not go very far. This raises the question as to what real reforms in France would entail. Without wanting to be exhaustive, we can give a few examples: The complete elimination of codetermination in employment relations ( joint management of social security systems by employers and unions); The complete shift to negotiations at the company level (and no longer at the sector or national level); A re-examination of the scope of the state : what services is the private sector better at providing than the public sector? This is the only way to really reduce public spending; Focusing economic policy on mechanisms that have a proven effect on the employment rate and on the structural unemployment rate: reducing corporate social contributions, raising labour force skills.