French minimum wage raised

The French national minimum wage, the SMIC, has been increased to 43.72 FFr (£4.07) an hour.

In France the national minimum wage must go up by an amount equivalent to inflation plus half the "real increase" (after inflation) in manual earnings in the previous 12 months. The increase, which came into effect at the start of last month, was 4.04%, slightly above this minimum figure.

The unions have criticised the increase as being insufficient but the government has defended itself pointing to the fact that the SMIC has gone up by 10% more than inflation in the last four years. (For more details see the Labour Research Department's Bargaining Report July 2001.)