Who wants to get Fired?

PARIS: Mariam, a 28-year-old employee at a retail chain in France, went to great lengths to get fired.

She knew she wouldn't be eligible for unemployment payments if she simply quit. Mariam asked her company flat-out to fire her, but she was turned down. Then she simply stopped showing up for work. Her wish was granted at last - she was fired, went on the dole and found a new job six months later.

Soon, such convoluted yet surprisingly common schemes may be a thing of the past. An unusual new proposal, prompted by President Nicolas Sarkozy's push for a more flexible labour market, would allow employees to get unemployment payments even if they quit.

Business leaders and government officials brush off questions about whether this could encourage more people to go on government handouts. They insist that a variety of new reforms will work in harmony to create jobs and cut joblessness in a labour market tainted by deception and inertia.

Lawyers and observers of France's business world say people often ask their bosses to fire them instead of quitting unsatisfying jobs, because they're afraid of losing the safety net of unemployment payments and terrified of not finding another job soon. The unemployment rate stands at 8.3 per cent; the average length of unemployment is more than 9 months.

Schemes like Mariam's are a symptom of how those fears have made workers risk-averse, and of just how much France's rigid labour market needs to change. Mariam asked to be identified by her middle name only, because she lied to her new employer about how she left her last job.