The 35 Hours : A New Era
In this short forum statement, Guy Aznar places the 35 hours law currently under negotiation in France into a larger temporal and international context. By this means he underlines first that the reduction in hours of work is the continuation of a longstanding trend, common to all industrialised countries, and then shows that this measure is a logical accompaniment to a more fundamental re-structuring of work which will have important consequences on modes of life and uses of time.
He recalls at the same time that the 35-hours rule is not a panacea against unemployment. Other measures should therefore be adopted, of a kind which set the issue into a more ambitious perspective : It is a transformation of society and lifestyles which will raise many major existential questions.
This article is published in Futuribles journal no.237, décembre 1998
