ABSTRACT
Urbanization and economic change have brought new patterns of work, leisure and consumption. Working conditions improved progressively throughout the twentieth century thanks to legislation limiting hours of work and to the provision of statutory paid holidays. Thus the eight-hour day was introduced in 1918, the 40-hour week in 1936, and the 39-hour week in 1982. Statutory holiday entitlement has gradually risen and in 1982 stood at five weeks in addition to public holidays, while the introduction of the 35-hour week may well translate into anything up to twelve days’ additional holiday for some managers. Conditions have been further improved both by the national minimum wage and by ‘mensualisation’, the process by which workers are paid monthly and make national insurance contributions, bringing them in under the net of social protection and giving them the right to sickness and unemployment benefits as well as to a pension» Both the 1982 lois Auroux and the 1998 and 1999 Ms Aubry (discussed in Parts 1 and II) were efforts to stimulate employment, but they were also attempts to improve the lot of the workers, and have brought about improvements in working conditions.
