Sebastien Lecornu<\/a> \u2013 now acting in a caretaker capacity after his Monday resignation set a modern record for briefness of tenure \u2013 has until the end of Wednesday (Paris time) to salvage a budget that would bring drastic cuts to public benefits.<\/p>\nA proposal from Lecornu\u2019s predecessor, the similarly short-lived Francois Bayrou, included the removal of two public holidays, prompting a wave of discontent that helped seal his fate.<\/p>\n
Proponents have called the reductions necessary for the country\u2019s fiscal health and to help it keep pace with the world\u2019s two largest economies, but critics have labelled the budget an attack on France\u2019s social model and prized balance between life and labour.<\/p>\n
The stand-off highlights a deeper struggle over Europe\u2019s economic future, as business leaders vying with their peers from the US and China for market share seek to maximise worker productivity \u2013 and those workers fiercely object to reductions in their quality of life.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe big question is, can we compete on an international scale while keeping all our values together?\u201d said Lionel Nesta, director of the Innovation and Competition Department at the French Observatory of Economic Cycles think tank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This week\u2019s collapse of the French government \u2013 featuring the resignation of a prime minister after only 27…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[12711,46119,46122,4391,114,1657,1767,39267,46124,184,63,1685,2226,9004,170,916,85,46125,46,46120,5368,1686,46126,46123,14128,6593,1032,8985,46121],"class_list":["post-62745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-americans","tag-austerity","tag-brain-drain","tag-budget","tag-business","tag-china","tag-competition","tag-debt-crisis","tag-east-asia","tag-economy","tag-europe","tag-european-union","tag-france","tag-french","tag-germany","tag-greece","tag-il","tag-institut-jacques-delors","tag-israel","tag-labour-rights","tag-paris","tag-productivity","tag-sacha-courtial","tag-san-jose","tag-sebastien-lecornu","tag-silicon-valley","tag-united-states","tag-work-life-balance","tag-working-hours"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}