Employment protection and labour market policies : trade-offs or complementarities? The case of France

The present paper deals with the developments in France. As the authors show, France could be cIassified as a country which operates a sort of cornplementarity between employment protection and labour market policies. Those aIready weIl protected by employment protection policies are aIso those that dispose of a whole array of labour market policies (of the basically passive, income-replacement type, such as early retirement) when the problem of lay-offs arises.