Perks are a way of life in France

Press, 9 October 1982, Page 15

Perks are a way of life in France

From

PAUL WEBSTER

in Paris

Liberty and fraternity are still flourishing in France but equality is on the sick list, according ■to a new book about perks which has topped the best-seller list for weeks.

“Toujours Plus" — "Always More" — by a television journalist. Francois de Closets, has led to the biggest row about privilege since the Socialists came to power. The book condemns not the perks of the rich but the hundreds of “rights" to which ordinary Frenchmen lay claim. The author says these "rights." often negotiated by Communist trade unions, have a more damaging effect on the economy than any privileges of the wealthy.

President Mitterrand, who annotated the book as he

read it, has ordered a dismantling of privilege, beginning with an examination of closed professions like notar-

ies. architects, and surveyors. A timid start has also been made in the civil service, where the right to travel first class has been taken away and the number of official vehicles reduced. The reaction of the professions was to hold a street protest in Paris. That was only a foretaste of what the Government can expect if it begins a real battle against what are known as “acquired rights." The Communist Party and the Communist-controlled C.G.T. trade union have already condemned the book's attack on workers' privileges.

Interest in the book is inspired mainly by the desire to find out just how much better off a neighbour is as a result of some historical agreement or clever union negotiation. For example, a 30 per cent reduction on declared income is allowed to journalists and airline pilots for tax purposes, based on the claim that they have to bear special, unidentified expenses. And all railway workers, even office staff, have the right to retire on full pensions at 55. Cheap gas and electricity for the 130,000 workers in the state electricity and gas

company costs taxpayers about $350 million a year. That perk, for just one set of workers, compares with the $6BO million a year France's new wealth tax will bring in.

“People are asking why the rich pay so little." Closets says. “The answer is that there aren't many of them."

Putting a price on perks is often difficult. They range from free transport for rail workers to the Communist trade union's control of the docks of Marseilles, where a docker's card is “hand ed down from father to son."

In some protected professions. such as officially appointed company liquidators, the perks can be startling. Some liquidators, protected by a charter which allows them to pay themselves up to 90 per cent of assets before creditors receive a franc, earn close on $500,000 a year. In the civil service, a number of sinecures are offered "as a carrot" to keep top men until the end of their careers. The “Keeper of Mortgages." for instance, receives a percentage of the value of mortgages and his earnings are about $B5OO a month. A more recently instituted privilege for civil servants came with the post-war creation of the Ecole Nationale d'Administration. Graduates are guaranteed a gov-

ernment salary for life. Most eventually leave for politics or industry and thus draw two salaries. The Communist Minister for the Civil Service. Anicet le Pors. has now ordered a complete overhaul of sinecures guaranteed by the school. Unwinding nearly two centuries of post-revolutionary privilege could well be the most difficult problem facing the Socialist Government. "A big part of the Leftwing electorate may not be rich in money but it is well installed in its rights and statutes that protect it from competition and the free market." Closets says. And “the main part of the privileged section of the community voted Mitterrand.” — Copyright — London Observer Service.

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