For the civil servants (who number more than a million in Ile-de-France), a circular from the former Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, already set the tone last November. In addition to remote work, ministries will be able to decide on schedule adjustments and impose leave. Public servants will also be allowed to deposit more days of leave than usual into their time savings account (CET) in 2024. “For us, calling for remote work is serious.

These are fewer customers,” regrets Franck Delvau, president of the Union of Hotel and Restaurant Industries (UMIH) Paris Ile-de-France. “We saw what it was like during Covid. Restaurants, cafes, and bars were left without customers in certain areas,” he continues. And it’s not certain that foreign tourists will make up for this shortfall.

“We are only being told about 1.1 million foreign tourists, but in Paris, in a normal summer, there are over three million,” he points out. In the UK, the number of foreign tourists was 5% lower in August 2012 than in 2011, during the London Olympics, according to the British Office for National Statistics (ONS). According to the Labour Code, remote work can only be implemented if both the company and the employee agree. In exceptional circumstances, the employer can impose remote work on the employee, even if the employee refuses.

The Olympics do not fall under the scope of exceptional circumstances. Only a judge could qualify the Games as exceptional circumstances, as has already been the case during the Covid period. If the French government wishes to impose remote work, it can do so by ordinance. But such a decision could trigger political and union challenges.