Would you care to explain me the cause and effect we French are missing with this CPE thing? I have read diametrically opposed opinions on this and I am confused, to say the less. By example, I fail to see the improvement over the existing systems (CDI and CDD - undetermined-period contract and fixed-period contract). If we are talking about trial time, existing contracts provide up to 6 months. Actually, interim and CDD contracts are often depicted as "extended" trial time by some recruiters I met. If we are talking about the ability to fire an incompetent or otherwise someone you don't need anymore, it is possible and relatively easy with the existing system (well, you have to precise a reason, but generally you have one, don't you? Economic backlask, incompetence, incompatibility of personalities, change of the mission, moving of facility...). If it's the paper-pusher part which is supposed to be adressed, we don't need a new type of contract, but rather a simplification of the existing system (I grant you, French entropy being what it is, a reform will never be easy) If it is the lifelong contract of the public servants which is a problem (and I agree it is - my own recruitment will be easier if I do not have to convince my would-be employer I will be a perfect lifemate, and I don't mind changing location every 3-5 years), this is not something concerned by the CPE, which adresses only to the private sector. You have the right to call me stupid. But please explain.
Before I make a complete fool of myself by trying to answer this, I think that a disclaimer would be in order
I am not an expert in French employment law nor an economist nor do I play one on TV
The issue here is basically that the students look at this from their perspective without looking at the perspective of the would be employer. Obviously the incentive for the young jobseeker is to find a job that pays as well as possible and which provides security of employment, so it is not surprising that a jobseeker would prefer to waltz straight into a permenant job.
The problem for employers boils down to risk. Except in the (relatively rare) case of a hire who directly replaces a worker who is leaving, employers will only hire if they are expecting an increase in business and generally speaking a permenant increase in business. Unfortunately even in the event that the new employee is in fact the perfect employee there are times when business just isn't so good and you need to fire people or have a really really tolerant bank manager. Given the overall economic outlook in France and given the generally less than understanding nature of bank managers a French employer will (and I speak from considerable obseravtional experience here) do practically anything to avoid hiring another employee. Hence all the fiddles with CDI, CDD etc etc or where people are "one person consulting firms" and so on.
The problem is that all these dodges are inefficient and borderline legal so that, as an employer, you always face the possibility that the French taxman or some fonctionnaire in the emplyment department will take a look at the books and decide that the you are dodging tax or something and force the contractors to become more permenant employees. In other words the risk, even with CDI etc., is that you will be penalized if you take on additional contractors/employees and there are very specific steps like going above 10 (I think it's 10) employees where the amount of red tape increases enormously. Hence you tend to try and find ways to avoid this by working your existing employees hard and/or by not accepting additional business.
The CPE is not, in itself, an end. It is the first baby step; just a partial liberalization of the regulations in that it allows an employer to take a risk for two years and then if things are still good keep the new employee on in regular (fully regulated) full time employment. If the employee is lazy or if the business opportunity isn't there the employer can cut his losses. Now I have no doubt that some employers will abuse the CPE and fire lots of people after 23 months of work, however for most skilled jobs - that is to say most of the jobs that university students can expect to have - employers spend a considerable amout of time and money in training, especially of people on their first job, and given that the employee who has worked for 23 months is a known quantity most employers will prefer to keep him on rather than fire him and look for an untrained replacement. Furthermore since one of the major reasons why employers prefer to hire experienced people rather than freshly minted students (even for CDD positions) is that they want to reduce or eliminate the amount of training they have to do the fact that someone has 23 months of work experience is an aid to getting another job.
Despite the fact that the unions disbelieve it, the French government should in fact permit all employees to be fired at will and remove most other employment laws (e.g. the 35 hour week) because this would significantly reduce unemployment. The result seems counter-intuituve unless you look at employer risk/reward ratios. In the US and the UK where employment law is far less restrictive people are not, as a rule, fired every 2 months because employers do not actually like spending money finding and training new employees. However they do like the idea that they can fire them if need be rather than see the entire company go bust. In France the cost of downsizing and the benefits that the saked worked get is such that when a company announces such a measure most long term employees prefer to be laid off rather than continue working. This is, to put it bluntly, a sign of a boken system.