French Sunday Work Bill Delayed In Sarkozy Setback

A bill that would make it easier for French shops to open on Sundays has been delayed until next year, Prime Minister Francois Fillon said on Thursday after rowdy scenes in parliament during the night.

The bill is a pet project of President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose main election slogan was "work more to earn more", but it has built up over several weeks into a big political headache.

The parliamentary delay is a fresh personal setback for him after street protests forced him earlier this week to shelve a reform of the school curriculum, in a rare public climbdown for a president who presents himself as an unstoppable reformer.

Sarkozy says the economic crisis has made it even more urgent to make the French labour market more flexible, encourage consumption and boost workers' purchasing power. He says more Sunday work would help achieve all those goals.

But critics of the bill, many of whom are in his own political camp, say that Sunday should be a day for people to spend time with their families, not in the shops. They also say that if consumers are reluctant to spend on weekdays, they are unlikely to spend on Sundays.

Sarkozy summoned rebel legislators from his own UMP party to his Elysee palace several times to try and persuade them to support the bill. After much to-ing and fro-ing, a compromise was found on Monday that substantially waters down the bill.

HEATED DEBATE

Its new version would extend authorised Sunday opening hours for food stores by one hour and allow all shops to open in designated tourist centres rather than just some of them.

It would allow mayors to choose eight Sundays per year when all shops in their towns can open, up from five Sundays now.

With the UMP legislators finally on board, the bill came up for debate in the National Assembly late on Wednesday but immediately got bogged down by multiple amendments from irate legislators from the left-wing opposition.

The debate got so heated that two legislators came to blows while others yelled abuse at one another and the session was suspended in the early hours of Thursday.

"We will resume the debate calmly in January, when people have cooled off," Fillon said on Europe 1 radio.

They were very far from cooling off on Thursday morning.

"I solemnly tell the prime minister that if the government maintains this bill it will have to trample over our bodies," said Socialist legislator Arnaud Montebourg on Europe 1 radio.

The French parliament has passed 55 reforms in the past 18 months, according to Fillon, and the opposition says the pace imposed by the government does not allow proper debate.

"It's not right that in France, in major parliamentary debates, we pass laws in two days as if they were banal paperwork or letters that you pop in the letterbox," said Montebourg.