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French press review 22 October 2013

Pigs, chickens and slave labour are on this morning's front-page agenda. They're all to be found in the western French region of Brittany.

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Poultry and pork make up a huge part of the Breton food industry. But the crisis has forced cutbacks and closures and some communities are living the nightmare of mass unemployment.

The news is not all bad.

Brittany still has fewer unemployed than the national average and some analysts are suggesting that the recent German decision to create a minimum wage in the food-processing sector will end the unfair competitive advantage currently enjoyed by producers on the other side of the Rhine.

But will it?

Under the headline "The part-time slave traders," tabloid Aujourd'hui en France reports on the increasing use of foreign workers in the food sector in both France and Germany.

A Polish company will supply labour to any French business requesting workers, promising that there'll be "no formalities, no pay slips, no social security payments, no employee tax" with the assurance that it's all 100 per cent legal.

And so it is.

The workers, predominantly Polish, Lithuanian and Romanian, are citizens of the European Community, free to work in any EU member state. They are paid by the Polish recruiting company, which organises their transport to France and provides housing. And the rates paid by the French companies to the Polish labour provider are low but correct, 1,425 euros for 152 hours per month, with a bonus for any overtime. All within the confines of French law.

However, according to Aujourd'hui en France, the housing conditions offered to the migrants are frequently deplorable, as many as 10 men being forced to share a caravan on a municipal site or crowded into cheap hotels. And they receive only a small part of the money they generate for their Polish or Romanian employers. Aujourd'hui en France has seen several salary records of payments made in Bucharest with the workers getting 558 euros per month, less than half the amount they have actually earned.

The advantage for the employers is flexibility and a huge saving on the social welfare and other statutory payments obligatory for French workers.

The same system of outsourcing labour needs is already in place in Germany and may well wipe out the hoped-for positive effect of the new minimum wage.

The French parliament will, this very day, start debating the ways and means of financing next year's social security budget.

Taxes on some saving schemes are on the agenda, and there's even a possibility of an extra tax on energy drinks.

Business daily Les Echos expects the debate to be lively, which is probably a euphemism.

Right-wing Le Figaro treats it all as a done deal, saying the thrifty middle classes are next for the Socialist chopping block, following last week's tax massacre of the business community.

Private health insurers are also likely to find themselves with steeper tax bills, an additional charge which many companies say they will be obliged to pass on to their customers.

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