“It doesn’t scare me”: a first baker targeted by an inspection, despite the government’s recommendations for May 1

The executive assured them that they could work with complete peace of mind. This Friday, May 1, the first baker was fined by the labor inspectorate for having made his employees work on the day of the international workers’ struggle, reports RMC.

Owner of the Le Pétrin Dauphinois bakery, in Isère, Éric Amieux saw the labor inspectors arrive around 8:30 a.m. this Friday. “The inspector told me that I did not have the right to be open with employees. I told him that we had the Prime Minister’s agreement. She told me that it was not in the law,” says the professional.

The manager assures that he has had his employees sign volunteer certificates, who will be paid double. According to Éric Amieux, the inspectors left after telling him that they would draw up a report.

Thursday, in an information note to the departmental employment directorates, the Director General of Labor – who reports to the Ministry of Labor – recalled “the particular context” of this May 1st and called for “vigilance”.

Legal vagueness

Indeed, in principle, “May 1st is a public holiday”. According to article L3133-4 of the Labor Code, establishments which do not comply with this rule are liable to a fine of 750 euros per working employee.

However, there are exceptions for “establishments which must have continuity such as hospitals and transport”. This also takes into account hotels and restaurants. Florists and bakers are not part of this category.

As a result, the government presented the bill on Wednesday which provides that in 2027, artisan bakers and florists will be able to have their employees work on May 1st. But the text has not yet come into force and bakers and florists are therefore still in the dark.

If the procedure targeting the Le Pétrin Dauphinois bakery is successful, Éric Amieux risks more than 5,000 euros in fines for his seven employees – four saleswomen, a baker, two pastry chefs – working this Friday.

“It really doesn’t scare me, because I know that we have the support of the profession, and that Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu was clear (in indicating) that if there were fines, we would not pay them,” confides Éric Amieux.

After this inspection, the baker also received a call from the head of government himself, Matignon told Le Parisien, confirming information from Europe 1.

“Employer delinquency”

The “governmental cacophony has given free rein to employer delinquency”, regretted the general secretary of the CGT Sophie Binet on Friday. “It is not the May 1st theft that should be put on Parliament’s agenda. It’s a big plan for increasing salaries,” she explained.

While Sébastien Lecornu and Gabriel Attal went to bakeries this Friday, the general secretary of the CFDT Marylise Léon denounced, Friday, the political leaders who are, according to her, “show politics”. “Politicians who go to a bakery, I think it’s part of a political show that we don’t need today. We need to show what the reality of an employee in a bakery is,” declared the leader of the first union before the start of the Parisian union demonstration.