Simon English: France's crazy jobs ploy just won't work

Outlook How do you protect workers in a recession? If you are a Tory adviser, such as Adrian Beecroft, you strip them of all rights so that it is possible to keep them employed at much cheaper rates. Which will ensure employment rates stay high.

Reassuringly, Beecroft, David Cameron and George Osborne all go for this personally under the terms and conditions of their own employment. There's proof that it works (don't ask where, there just is).

So it is with some disappointment we report that, I quote Reuters, "France's new Socialist government is planning labour regulations in the coming months to ramp up the cost of laying off workers for companies, its labour minister said after data showed the jobless rate has hit 10 percent".

This crazy guy's response to rising unemployment is to make it harder to fire people. Is he not aware of the British economic miracle?

The French Labour Minister Michel Sapin said: "The main idea is to make lay-offs so expensive for companies that it's not worth it."

This will clearly inhibit economic growth. Which was otherwise soaring. Honestly, have they not learned the lessons of the banking crisis?

s.english@independent.co.uk