First Employment Contract

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The contrat première embauche (CPE; English: first employment contract) was a new form of employment contract pushed in spring 2006 in France by Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin. This employment contract, available solely to employees under 26, would have made it easier for the employer to fire employees by removing the need to provide reasons for dismissal for an initial "trial period" of two years, in exchange for some financial guarantees for employees, the intention being to make employers less reluctant to hire additional staff. However, the enactment of this amendment to the so-called "Equality of Opportunity Act" (loi sur l'égalité des chances) establishing this contract was so unpopular that soon massive protests were held, mostly by young students, and the government rescinded the amendment.

President Jacques Chirac declared that the law would be put on the statute book, but that it would not be applied. Article 8 of the 31 March 2006 Equality of Opportunity Act, establishing the CPE, was repealed by a 21 April 2006 law on the Access of Youth to Professional Life in Firms. The rest of the Equality of Opportunity Act, whose dispositions were also contested by the students' protests, was maintained.