Demographics, French labour law and language

My support for super fresh milk was vindicated. Our Cow Molly was given first place in the BBC’s Food and Farming awards. The competition was stiff, aquaponic technology for example. It’s somehow comforting that the production and marketing of fresh milk was judged to be inspiring. Pleased also to see that fresh milk is of interest to many people.

The Spectator magazine of 23rd April reported that In 1952 life expectancy at birth was 66 for men and 70 for women. It is now 79.1 and 82.8 respectively. There were 300 Britons over the age of 100 in 1952. There are now 14,500 with another 527,000 over 90.

Current public unrest in Paris, and elsewhere in France, is a reaction to the government’s attempts to change certain aspects of the country’s labour law. The Medef, the employers’ organisation, blames in part the complexity of the labour law for the lack of new job creation since employers are reluctant to hire because it is so difficult to fire employees at times of economic downturn. The cost to employ is also high in France and this too is partly blamed on the Code du Travail, and the 35 hour week, for example. During a televised debate on the subject, Sur I Télé, 27 September 2015, the Code du Travail was shown to contain 3900 pages of which 675 were the laws and the remainder contained commentary on the spirit and the application of the laws. These figures refer to the Dalloz edition which is the most commonly used. Companies of a certain size find it necessary to employ specialists in labour law to defend their interests against what is, in effect, a document which exclusively defends the interests of the salaried employee. As soon as a company employs its 50th person, it becomes subject to many more articles of the Code du Travail and this administrative load is extremely difficult for SMEs to cope with. There are others who argue that the size and complexity of the Code du Travail has little to do with the high unemployment rate in France, Thomas Picketty for example. This is a subject which has created serious problems for successive governments.

In parallel, the gigantic order to supply Australia with state-of-the-art submarines that France has recently won in the face of Japanese and German competition, should be a major boost to national morale and have some effect on the unemployment figures.

From a language usage standpoint, what’s been annoying me recently? The use of “multiple”. It is usual in multiple fractures, 9 is a multiple of 3, but now it’s everywhere: "…with multiple people claiming that it lost them their jobs." Business Insider, 01.04.16. Yet another American usage. What’s wrong with or so unattractive about words like many and several? Are they too ordinary? It must be that “multiple people” is so creative and original that I’m missing the point.

I was heartened to read an item by an American commentator, quoting Mr Trump: “It’s the novel syntax. The free-form grammar - ‘This is a story that seems to be more and more happening’ ”. Andrew Romano, Yahoo, 31.03.16. Ah, well.

I shall close with a complex mix of syntax provided by Joe Lynam, a journalist specialising in Business on BBC’s Radio 4 programme Today: “...much fewer companies”. Joe also uses a lot of Americanisms…