Calvisson Service Economy

Calvisson is a small town in the south of France, located in the Languedoc region, between the cities of Nimes and Montpellier.  The town has 5500 inhabitants. It has been growing fast thanks to an influx of retirees (the French equivalent of snow birds!) and of younger people who commute to the above-mentioned cities for work.  Calvisson looks very much like a Provençal village without the Provence markup.  Languedoc’s traditional wine making activity is significantly growing and tourism is booming.  Nonetheless, the region is poorer than the French average.  To compensate, and to keep the folk quiet and comfortable, the government dishes all sorts of benefits.  As we know, this policy worked until November last year, when the violent Yellow Vest protestors started trashing the Champs Elysees in Paris.  The protesters wanted more purchasing power, more benefits and less tax (with an 8 percent unemployment rate, oddly jobs were not an issue).  Anyway, that is another story! (Check my January 31 blog).


One third of the 5500 Calvissonnais are obviously angry, as they routinely vote for Marine Le Pen’s Party.  As a matter of fact, her protest party came in first position during the European Elections in June 2019, although by a whisker nation-wide.  People from the north of France regard the south as inhabited by a lazy and ungrateful bunch who takes advantage of both the sun and the generous French benefit system.  Since the hard-working northerners have also cheerfully endorsed Marine’s ideas, this geographical cultural clash appears to be limited to work ethic. 


I spend four months a year in Calvisson when the sun shines at its brightest, and I can confirm that these diehard stereotypes are not entirely inaccurate in the service sector.  Service is not to be found in the DNA of French citizens, north or south, and this since the sans-culottes stormed the Bastille fortress in 1789.  Southerners are particularly unmotivated to take service jobs, although opportunities are plentiful in a region which attracts growing hordes of tourists and seniors.  Here, many argue that service and servitude are the same thing, and that it is culturally an anathema to work during the sacrosanct weekend and between 12 noon and 2pm. During the week.  With government benefits so close to the minimum salary (the second highest in Europe!), it makes more economic sense to pocket handouts, stay home and moonlight for a sizeable extra income.  Obviously, it is a shortsighted decision since the underground economy deprives the government of income to pay those cherished benefits.  It is a catch 22 situation.  Now, the government is reducing these generous handouts to stimulate people to take a formal job and cut the stubborn unemployment rate (about 12.3 percent in the region).  However, to wean people from the short-term gain of the black economy will take more persuasion.  This culture is engrained in the south of France.  

                                                                       Some stereotypes


However, by portraying the southerners as lazy, detractors miss the point.  The legendary daytime bistro scene is misleading: the patrons are mostly seniors, and tourists.  True, there are plenty of youth loitering in street corners (youth unemployment is an astounding 33%, more on this later), but the majority of Languedociens are hard at work.  However, they choose to work on their own terms, namely when they feel like it, and the underground service economy provides plenty of autonomy for enterprising workers.  Apparently, clocking onto a formal job has little fascination. 


The anecdotes reported in this blog may seem caricature, and politically incorrect to some readers, but as the song goes, little streams make big rivers.  Twenty percent of the population of Calvisson get some sort of government benefit.   Financing housing aid is generous, and in addition, 4% of the inhabitants receive income support (French acronym RSA).  The RSA offers people, who are either unemployed or with a very low salary a minimum level of income.  Many unemployed RSA beneficiaries do not seem to actively look for a formal job.  Here goes the first anecdote. 


Upon my arrival, my casual cleaning lady informed me that she could no longer work for me because of backpain.  She is a long-standing RSA beneficiary, and does a couple of ménages, house cleaning on the side for extra earnings.  I had a hard time to find a substitute.  The first one stood me up twice; she receives unemployment benefit and takes a training course provided by the employment agency.  She nonetheless told me that she has no intention of taking any formal job as she wants to keep her freedom! I gave up on her.  I finally found one by contacting the Calvisson mairie, the town hall staff seem to have a reserve of people willing to help.  I found a window cleaner, a handyman and a gardener.  None asked for money, I rewarded them with a pourboire, a gratuity.  It is well known that in the south, mairie employees are willing to moonlight at the drop of a hat.  With a 35-hour work-week mairie job, they have time to spare.  Actually, many are kept on the payroll to do nothing.    
Over the years, to get service, I became complicit in a behavior which I do not approve.


There are six restaurants in Calvisson, and this being the south, some of them are only opened five days a week! One would believe that during the busy summer months they would stay open seven days a week to attract visitors and improve their cash flow.  Sadly, the French economic culture (or lack thereof) goes against the tenets of the modern tourism industry.  Calvisson offers a vignette of France’s handicap, namely the high labor cost[1] and people ‘s reluctance to work in the service economy.  Now comes my second anecdote. 


Last year, friends and I went to a restaurant, and to my surprise I spotted a colleague from my gym behind the bar, a senior like me.  He had to chip in to help his restaurateur friend because the young bartender called in sick for the weekend.  Later, I found out that that fellow had requested double salary to get up on Saturday morning!  In the south, young people prefer to enjoy themselves during local bull and horse fetes to working on weekends.  I could fill pages and pages with similar anecdotes on this subject.  France is miffed by the fact that it gets more tourists than any other country, but that they spend less money than elsewhere.  All these closed restaurants may offer one answer to this vexing question. 


When moonlighting, southerners show their creativity, spirit and entrepreneurship.  The French government should take this fact into consideration when deciding on policies to reform its current nanny state which many people reject (although for opposite reasons).  

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[1] About 45% of the salary.  The net remuneration paid to a wage earner amounts to around 53% of the total cost born by the employer.