French legislation provides for the obligation for companies to pay interns for all professional experience exceeding two months. However, a new European resolution could change everything for higher education students!
On 8 October, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the Youth Guarantee, filed on 1er october. This motion for a resolution highlighted the role played by internships and apprenticeships in reducing youth unemployment which was 24.4% in Europe in 2013, reaching 14.9% before the COVID-19 crisis. .
In addition, this resolution highlights the impact of the coronavirus and the health crisis on students’ professional experiences, but also on their finances, thus noting “scarification effects” (…) particularly felt by the growing number of young long-term unemployed and by society as a whole, and therefore require decisive and targeted strategic efforts. »
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Guarantee fair remuneration for all interns
In this text, MEP Lucia Ďuriš Nicholsonová, member of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, discusses the remuneration offered during internships. She ” calls on the Commission to review existing European instruments such as the quality framework for traineeships and the European framework for effective and quality apprenticeships and to include quality criteria in the offers made to young people, including the principle of fair remuneration for young people in internships and apprenticeships », specifying that this work would allow students to better integrate into working life, in stable jobs, thus fighting against precariousness.
In addition, she also recalls that the Member States of the European Union are not vigilant enough on the issue of fair remuneration for jobs, or even on the quality of the missions offered, considering that companies too often call on interns. to carry out employee work. “ Internship contracts should take the form of written, legally binding agreements, specifying the intern’s tasks and providing decent remuneration; believes that the objective of the Youth Guarantee must be to lead to employment and that internships must never lead to replacing jobs. »
Finally, the text “ condemns the practice of unpaid internships and apprenticeships, which constitutes a form of exploitation of young people’s labor and a violation of their rights. » With this resolution, the European Parliament would therefore like to force EU companies to pay a salary to all interns, regardless of the length of professional experience. As this resolution was adopted recently, we do not currently know whether the text could force Member States to align quickly.
