By Nicholas Vinocur and Emmanuel Jarry
PARIS (Reuters) - The head of France's biggest union cast doubt on President Francois Hollande's goal of halting a rise in unemployment by year-end, arguing that planned reforms to stimulate the labour market must be supplemented by European investments to succeed.
Laurent Berger, leader of the moderate CFDT union that voted in favour of loosening labour rules in January, said the reform due to be passed in parliament next week may come in time to help companies avoid layoffs, but will not create jobs.
Hollande has promised to get joblessness falling before the end of 2013, a pledge rapidly losing credibility as the number of job seekers edges toward an all-time high following 22 consecutive months of rises.
"Honestly, at the moment it seems very difficult to reach that goal," Berger told Reuters at the CFDT's main office on Friday. "The key thing is to maintain the goal of bringing unemployment down, but by year-end is going to be hard."
Berger, elected head of the CFDT last November, provided key union backing for Hollande when he launched talks on labour reform against resistance by hardline unions. He also supports upcoming reforms of the job training and pension schemes.
But he blamed the Socialist leader for failing to tout such structural reforms and said Hollande should press his European partners, notably Germany, much more forcefully on the need for investments to create jobs across the 27-member European Union.
"It's time to raise our voice (in Europe)," he said. "Yes there is a path to follow, which is debt reduction, but we can discuss the pace of that push given our problems with growth, and we need to talk about investments for jobs."
France has appealed for an extra year to bring its budget deficit down to 3 percent of economic output after admitting it would miss the goal in 2013. European Commission Vice President Antonio Tajani said Thursday he was favourable to an extension.
NO REJIG OF JOBLESS BENEFITS
In line with Hollande's drive to overhaul the French labour system and toward a northern European "flexi-security" model, Berger said he backed plans to revamp an inefficient job training scheme blamed for wasting billions of euros per year.
Berger - whose CFDT union is the largest by membership, while the rival CGT is often considered more powerful due to France's union system - also backed plans for another reform of pensions to extend the pay-in period beyond 41.5 years.
But the 44-year-old said he was opposed to a reform of the jobless benefit system to ease pressure on an indebted unemployment fund, called UNEDIC.
The deficit of that fund - which is managed by unions but counts toward France's public deficit - is expected to hit 5 billion euros in 2013. The government has urged unions to rejig the system during talks due to take place by mid-year, including by shortening the duration of pay-outs.
"It's inconceivable to reduce jobless benefits in this context," Berger said. "It's out of the question."
He warned that tens of thousands of jobless people would run out of unemployment benefits in the next few months while mass layoffs kept up their recent pace, with IBM planning to cut 1,200-1,400 jobs over this year and the next.
However, he deplored a grim social climate in France that at times seemed to be out of step with the nature of troubles actually facing the country, Europe's second largest economy, compared with its neighbour Spain.
"When you meet Spanish people, you get the impression that we are in their situation and they are in ours, when in fact the roles are reversed - not everything is bad here," he said.
(Reporting By Nicholas Vinocur; Editing by Brian Love and Catherine Evans)
