FRANCE: An artist of idleness tells how to work the system for 24 years

The Times ^ | October 9, 2006 | Adam Sage

[MadIvan]

With his flat overlooking the tennis courts and his black Alfa Romeo, Thierry F. enjoys a comfortable lifestyle.

And that is the problem. After spending most of the past 24 years on the dole, he sees no reason to look for a job.

In a country where 2.2 million people are of out work and the welfare system offers some of the most generous benefits in Europe, his story is all too familiar. But now he may have killed the goose that laid the golden egg after deciding to write a book about his lackadaisical life.

The work, Moi, Thierry F. Chômeur Professionel (Me, Thierry F. Professional Jobseeker), was published this week and has fed a debate that is certain to be at the centre of next year’s presidential election. Critics say the account highlights the need to rein-in a social security system that costs France 22.2 per cent of its national wealth. But supporters defend the right to welfare support, which they describe as the bedrock of the French postwar identity.

Thierry F. — he refuses to divulge his surname because he does not want the social security office to pry into his affairs — is surprisingly ambivalent. “I know I profit from the system, but I am nevertheless surprised that I have been able to get away with it all these years. I suppose I wrote the book to denounce that.”

Having long since exhausted his right to unemployment benefit, Thierry F. lives off l’Allocation de Solidarité Spécifique (The Specific Solidarity Benefit), which is €99.75 (£67) a week. With the State reimbursing all but €23.88 of the monthly instalments on his home loan, free medical care and a €152 bonus at Christmas, he gets by without difficulty.

“When I’ve paid all the bills, I have about €170 a month for my leisure activities. That’s quite enough.” He lives in Roanne, central France, one of the country’s cheapest towns, where the unemployment rate is 17.7 per cent. He shops in discount stores and says he has a wide circle of friends who often invite him to dinner. “I am an artist of laziness,” he writes in the book. “A real pro . . . Is it my fault if I don’t like work?” Thierry F. claims a profound knowledge of France’s benefit system, enabling him to avoid employment for all but 31 months of his adult life.

He cites l’Allocation de Solidarité Spécifique as an example. In theory, this is available only to those who have worked five years out of the past ten. But he discovered that training courses, on which the Roanne job centre often sends him, count as work He has been trained in CV writing, sending letters to employers and answering questions at job interviews. He notes what the teachers say and does the opposite.

Thierry F. insists that boredom is not a problem. “I generally lounge around in the morning and then go out. I know lots of people and I’m never short of something to do.” In the summer, when he takes the 35 days of annual holiday during which French job seekers are allowed to put aside the job search, he visits his sister on the French Riveria. “If I got a job on the minimum wage, I’d have less money at the end of the month.”

At job interviews, Thierry F. makes sure to disappoint his prospective employer. “It’s a sort of game,” he says. But the game may soon be over. He believes that the social security office will find him. And when it discovers he has written a book that is probably generating a substantial revenue for its author, Thierry F. may discover that even in France there is a limit to the State’s generosity.

FREE MONEY

Compared with the Specific Solidarity Benefit of €99.75 a week, free healthcare and loans help, if he were British Thierry H could claim:

Jobseeker’s Allowance £57.45 per week

Council Tax benefit all council tax paid

Housing Benefit rent paid

Prescriptions free

Social Fund: one-off payments to help to furnish a home or pay for a funeral

[MadIvan]

Ouch!

Regards, Ivan

[MadIvan]

Ping!

[sageb1]

Sounds like my sister-in-law who got a dr. to say she was bi-polar and then milked the system. She also tried to get a dr. to say her son was ADHD...doc said no.

[peyton randolph]

The work, Moi, Thierry F. Chômeur Professionel

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Publish it in the U.S. under the title "The Lazy French Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkey." It will be a hit.

[MadIvan]

This is actually not the first work out of France on laziness. Corinne Maier, an economist at EdF in Paris, wrote a book called "Bonjour Paresse" which means "Hello Laziness".

Regards, Ivan

[TimSkalaBim]

France's Airbus must have a bunch of guys like this on the payroll.

Seriously, though, who'd want to hire him?

[Irishguy]

you know what i love about these guys...they think the state is paying...like some 'body' somewhere that just prints money...

he is sponging off his fellow frenchmen...they are like leeches...they produce nothing...what a sad sad way for a person to be...a souless, heartless waste of life and it will always be the net result of these type of unlimited welfare programs...

[2ndDivisionVet]

Is Mons. Thierry any relation to that famous French gigilo, Mons. Kerry? I'm a so-called "Katrina victim" from Mississippi and I get exactly $0 from our social services, which is as it should be....

[Republicain]

“If I got a job on the minimum wage, I’d have less money at the end of the month.”

Unfortunately, it's true.

But this article forgets a lot of things :

Thierry F. can have every month a discount on his telephone and electricity bills. He doesn't have to pay any kind of local tax or income tax. Nor what we call the "redevance" if he has got a TV set (€120 a year). Moreover, if he has worked a few months in the year, he can expect to receive several hundreds of euros from the Treasury each year. And if he works 4 months at a strech, he can expect to get the "Prime pour l'emploi" (€1000). He can have cheapest bus tickets too, and so on...

And of course there's a lot of charities if he wants free food, free clothes and other things.

[peyton randolph]

an economist at EdF in Paris, wrote a book called "Bonjour Paresse" which means "Hello Laziness".

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Thanks for the info. I'll have to check it out.

[Cementjungle]

Is it my fault if I don’t like work?

Yea, I think so.

[ClaireSolt]

This is an unkind and inaccurate view of what it takes to get disability for bipolar.

[goldstategop]

There's no sense to being productive Europe when the state confiscates two-thirds of your income. You might as well live off all the benefits your taxes pay for. Not too surprisingly, there is little criticism in Europe of taking advantage of the Continent's generous social welfare system. Its truly cradle to grave.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[3niner]

I have some in-laws who want this kind of system here.

[pepsionice]

I live in Germany...I have an odd neighbor who has been unemployed for four years and basically...at the age of 42...is declared unhirable. The Germans progressed this guy through the two years of unemployment...offering various incentives to get back to work during that time. Then they shifted him to Hartz IV...a program which is the bottom tier of welfare. They pay his rent, his electricity, his heat, and a $450 on top of that for him, his wife (who gets $800 for disability), and two remaining kids in the house. They've sent him to dozens of interviews...and he has been hired a dozen times over two years...but none lasting more than two weeks.

The guy smokes at least eight joints a day...and is in a constant stress attack if he doesn't. He is supposed to be a truck driver...but you allow a guy like this to drive. The employers let him stick around a day or two usually...but since he isn't mentality fixed to actually work...they just fire him. All of this was working great for him until this year when he decided to start growing his own pot. Yep, he actually took $500 from his remaining savings, and bought the lamps...and made up a basement growth lab for pot. For about six months...he was really happy...growing and waiting for maturity. Then the electrical guy came and did the meter read. They handed the government a bill for around $2500 for six months of electrical usage. The government guy is now asking alot of questions and trying to understand how you suddenly jump your bill from $90 a month...to $400. I just sit and watch this shiftless behavior and can't understand how this guy thinks he can survive the rest of his life.

[napscoordinator]

2.2 million people are of out work and the welfare system offers some of the most generous benefits in Europe



Americans are the last people to bash the French on this issue. We have a boatload more than 2.2. million on our dole. I wish we were so lucky as the French. This is definitely a don't throw stones type of scenario. There are some reasons to bash France because we are better than they are but this is not one of them. Let's not lose our reality because of our hatred towards the French. It makes us look hypocritical.

[Rummenigge]

He will end up in jail - my bet.

Anyhow we will pay for his life. What troubles me most is, that these are the guys with the most children. Most engineers or natural scientist feel they don't have the time for chidren because they are not in union granting them a week of 35 hours working time.

If you (have to) life on social welfare (well there are those who have to) you get much more if you have to feed some children.

[paudio]

Is it my fault if I don’t like work? Yea, I think so.

I disagree. Many people don't like to work either. However, unlike him, those other people cannot afford to not be out of job for that long. It's French society's fault that makes people like him possible to live at the expense of somebody else.

[paudio]

We need to see the proportion of those 2.2m to the labor force, then we can compare.

[goldstategop]

That's the point Mark Steyn has often made... Europe has turned its adults into grown-up children. With the state taking care of all your needs, you're left with practically nothing to do. Why work? True, you would be earning a paycheck but what the government takes doesn't allow you to decide what to do with what money is left over. That's why reform of the European welfare state is nearly impossible when every one, like a junkie, collects a state benefit.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus