Word: frenchness
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...fill Parisian streets with fruit and vegetables to protest low prices; striking truckers shut down major highways until their demands for better working conditions are addressed. And last week, another howling, angry mob jammed a cavernous exhibition hall in Paris to vent its outrage over a proposed change in French labor law. Only this time the participants were senior executives and business owners...
...French employers think this is fantasy. The nonwage costs of adding a worker, they claim, overwhelm any increase in production--one of the reasons unemployment is high in the first place. Their obligatory contributions for benefits add up to 45% of salary costs. They pay a higher minimum wage than the U.S. or most European countries. Laying workers off is legally complicated and prohibitively expensive. And, in Michelin's case, political dynamite. When the famed French tiremaker said last month that it was slashing 10% of its work force after posting a 17% rise in earnings, Jospin threatened to sanction...
...economists expect the law to kick-start employment. Indeed, the biggest fear is for French competitiveness. Across Europe, the costly brand of welfare capitalism that provided 30 days of vacation, inflexible work rules and ironclad job security is being dismantled to enhance productivity and create jobs. "My competitors are all non-French," says Gerard Charlier, head of a 70-employee firm that manufactures and exports casino chips. "They see what's going on here, and they're laughing...
...like Blue Cross of California now cover at least some spa treatments if prescribed by a physician. Better hotels simply have to have one, and companies like Hewlett-Packard are hiring on-site massage therapists for employees. Big Business has had its head turned in other ways too. The French giant LVMH, owner of Dior and Givenchy, last spring bought New York City's ultrahip Bliss spa for an estimated $30 million. Cosmetic companies like Estee Lauder are competing as well, with growing chains of day spas across the country...
DIED. BERNARD BUFFET, 71, austere French painter whose dark landscapes and portraits (like the De Gaulle he did for Time, above) were inspired by postwar Paris; by his own hand, after a battle with Parkinson's disease; in southern France...