A DIFFICULT PROBLEM

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 34, 10 February 1927, Page 17

A DIFFICULT PROBLEM

FRENCH UNEMPLOYMENT

COMPETITION- FROM FOREIGN

WORKERS

.The increasing signs of lack of work, due to (Unfinished production, consequent on the too rapid revalorisation of the franc, are made manifest by the attitude of some authorities towards the employment of foreign workmen, states the Paris correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph." The theory has been put .forward that if an unemployment crisis of great magnitude should occur, French Labour must be safeguarded, and it has been urged that it can be protected by putting an end to the inflow of workers from abroad and by repatriating those engaged in industries which are now on short time The Commission which controls foreign labour in the Meurthe-et-Moselle has already decided that tho entries in that Department shall be limited. Foreign workmen have entered France with contracts signed by the Ministers of Labour and Agriculture. They were in^ vited to' como into the country after the war to make up for France's loss in manpower. From 1920 to 1925 the number •controlled" was 1,182,253. During the same years, over-286,000 were repatriated. For the first months of 1926 50,000 more foreigners arrived to fulfil work contracts and, according to a statement made by ll' Andre Falheres, the Minister of Labour there are now in tho country 1,300,000 workers from other countries. To this total must.-be added 80,000 natives of .North. Africa and 6000 belonging to other coloured -races, so that it may be said that there are 1,400,000 "controlled" foreigners . employed in France, apart from those who come in without contracts Before the war the number of alien labourers, was 480,000. The question arises: What shall be done with this category of labour in the event ot a serious economic crisis? Will these people be retained because they have contracts?- There is a paragraph in these contracts which sets forth that at the end of every six months for which the agreement holds good the' workman shall receive a bonus of 50 francs as an indemnity it, he has to return to his own country this indemnity being also paid if he is discharged for reasons of force majeure before the expiration of his engagement, ihis paragraph is interpreted by a writer in the 'Petit Journal" as taking away irom the foreign workmen any priority ot employment if it is a case of dischareing hands. . On the other hand, M. Henri Sellier, member of the Mixed Labour Commission of the Seine County Council, argues that if foreign workmen-afe throton out of work through an economic crisis they cannot be refused unemployment allowances. The last crisis of this kind in France occurred in 1921, and in that year over 90,000 workmen had to be assisted from 264 funds, departmental and municipal. Appeals for assistance are now being made to these funds, but not a3 yet to any great extent.