Soldiers with time clocks: fatal blow for the French army?

"Always ready for action" is the basic understanding of the soldiers in the French army.

But the Court of Justice of the EU (ECJ) could put an end to the model of constant readiness for action.

This is feared by President Emmanuel Macron, who solemnly adopted the Chief of Staff François Lecointre on Wednesday in Paris.

The new chief of staff, Thierry Burkhard, is faced with the challenge of swearing the soldiers to work time recording.

This is what the Court of Justice wants, ruling on July 15 that military personnel are not in principle exempt from the EU Working Time Directive.

In the future, soldiers will have to record their working hours for certain activities and may not work more than 48 hours per week.

Michaela Wiegel

Political correspondent based in Paris.

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"A fatal blow for our defense," said former Defense Minister Jean-Pierre Chevènement outraged. Former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe wrote, no less indignantly, "the entire model of the operational capability of our armed forces and our military culture is threatened". "I am an ardent European," said Macron, but "if the European path leads to denial and weakening our defense power, then we will not give in," warned the president shortly before the verdict in his traditional address to the Armed Forces on National Day. "We have defended our status and will hold out until the end," said Macron, who is the highest army chief according to the constitution. Defense Minister Florence Parly sounded more cautious: she would have the consequences for the army examined,she announced.

When does a soldier have to record his working hours?

The verdict goes back to the complaint of a Slovenian NCO who wanted to be better paid for his guard duty.

The Slovenian courts rejected the plaintiff's claims, citing the soldiers' special status.

The Danish Advocate General at the European Court of Justice, Henrik Saugmandsgaard, took the view that the organization of working hours of soldiers was not excluded from the scope of EU law.

Up until now, Slovenia, Spain and France had always made use of the special status of the armed forces, invoking Article 4 (2) of the Treaty on EU. The article states that national security remains the sole responsibility of each member state. However, the Court ruled that this did not apply to military activities related to services, administration, maintenance, repair, health and law-keeping, and the prosecution of criminal offenses.

This is a severe blow to France's army model. The gendarmerie is part of the armed forces and plays a key role in maintaining order and in the prosecution of criminal offenses in rural areas. The gendarmes live in barracks and can be mobilized at any time. But for the army, navy and air force, too, the judgment amounts to a paradigm shift. "An efficient action by the army is not compatible with a 35-hour week," warned Chevènement. France will inevitably have to refuse certain military orders. This is also bad news for the EU, because after Brexit the French army is the strongest operational force in the EU.

With its ruling, the EU Court of Justice is disregarding state sovereignty in the defense sector, criticized Chevènement. A soldier can never be “a worker like everyone else”. Former Prime Minister Philippe also complained that the ruling violated France's right to sovereignty. "How are we supposed to accept that soldiers who serve as a working hypothesis with death are equated with other workers," wrote Philippe.

In Germany, too, the EU working time directive was initially controversial in the army. Defense Minister Thomas de Maizière, son of a general, refused to implement the 2003 directive. Soldiers are always on duty, he argued. But his successor Ursula von der Leyen enforced the recording of working hours, although commanders in an internal paper criticized the guideline as a "disruptive factor for operational readiness". The German-French brigade liked to mock the Bundeswehr soldiers with their time clocks. Shortly before the French EU Council Presidency in the first half of 2022, the ruling brings the entire political class against the EU.

Even writers like Erik Orsenna, Sylvain Tesson, Yann Queffélec and Daniel Rondeau have revolted against “the dictation” from Luxembourg in a joint opinion piece. They lament "the absurdity of the incessant production of norms" that cannot be reconciled with the reality of a soldier's life. "Before the attack, a soldier cannot say: I have a break now," they write. The writers criticize that the European technocrats have apparently become alien to the idea of ​​fulfilling their duties, serving and fighting spirit. In view of the worsening international threat situation, treating the soldiers like ordinary "employees" is tantamount to a European task. The right-wing extremist presidential candidate Marine Le Pen is meanwhile openly calling for people to break the law.The ECJ ruling must be circumvented, she demanded. Implementation with it is out of the question.