Check out your Comité Entreprise ("C.E.")

[Crevette]

Definately something I regret not finding out about earlier at my workplace is the "Comité Entreprise".

I don't know how mine compares with others but they ;

i) You can get 2 cinema tickets a month for 4 euros each

ii) 2 times a year you and your partner/children can go to a concert and they will re-imburse €23 per ticket.

iii) If you subscribe to a gym they will give you €50

Lots of other offers (cheap Eurodisney tickets, etc.).

See ;

http://www.comite-dentreprise.com/modules/mylinks/

To be eligable you need to have worked 6 months (where I work).

Worth a look!

-Rob-

 

[Teamedup]

Not all companies have a CE, they are too small. As to the rest, well they are just about incomparible, there are the mega rich like the EDF............ where millions and millions of euros have been found to be unaccounted for, there is a book out about it. To small companies with the minimum of staff that must have a CE but run on a shoe string really. There are still benefits for their employees but they are a mere shadow of what big company CE's do. Some CE's are so big, with so many staff, that they have their own CE's.

Yes, I would imagine that formations were included in a CE's role. My husband's does lots of stuff, but no cheap cinema tickets, but they do buy tickets to big spectacle and we can buy these at a reduction. Reimbursements for holidays, under very restricted conditions and we don't really benefit from them. Bibliotheque and discotheque, which we appreciate and  a bricolage section, which is handy too.

The 'board' of a CE is elected and politics come into play too, but they are an interesting aspect to working life in France.

[SaligoBay]

Watch out too for something called the prêt patronale.   It's a low-interest loan, and no doubt varies from company to company.   In ours, you have to do it as part of sorting out your mortgage when you buy a house, and the limit was 10 000 euros, paid back at 1 per cent.  Not a lot down here in the south, but better than a kick in the teeth.