The “more protections” was they couldn’t be fired.

Therefore they need less protection/benefits for the case that they were fired, that being impossible.

Seems like a gaping hole in worker protections of public sector employees were exempted from severance pay. What’s the reasoning? Is it really because they just cannot lose their jobs?

A decision to void an existing contract isn't either.

That is a complete non-sequitur.

You would never resign. Those jobs are for life and have benefits and pensions.

It's like a startup who offers high stock options vested over a period for early employees. They grow too quickly and try to push the early employees out without triggering a clause that allows them to take back the options if they quit. They try to place them in jobs they are over qualified or not suited for.

Would you quit and leave money on the table.

It is actually extremely difficult to resign when you are haressed even when you know you are being harassed. It hit your sense of worth really hard. Feeling worthless prevents you for properly assessing what you could do on the job market. It also doesn't stop at work and generally strongly impacts your personal life for the same reason.

I have very little context besides being french and knowing people who worked there. Being "fonctionaire" is usually a very stable job where you will never get fired. If you go this route you will usually stay forever in the same position.

It's France, there isn't the culture of switching jobs all the time.

As consequence very few people hire for these positions as well.

A large majority of these employees were above 50 and had worked most of their life on the telephone infrastructure (network, last-mile, etc.). In 2004 France’s telephone network was fully mature, there simply wasn’t any more work for them to do. Sure, they could reskill and try their luck with a competing telco (which would have far less infrastructure, as they all piggy-backed on the incumbent). But would a competing telco hire a 50-something ex-civil servant, or someone out of school with more up-to-date skills and no idea of what a union is?

the article says that civil service employees don't receive the same unemployment benefits that private sector employees receive

Employees in the private sector can receive significant severance pay, which provides a financial cushion while they look for a new job. Civil service contracts don't have that perk, so France Télécom employees were reluctant to quit.

France is in fact losing ground globally. Compare PPP-adjusted GDP per capita for the US: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-per-capita-pp... to France: https://tradingeconomics.com/france/gdp-per-capita-ppp.

From 1990 to 2017, U.S. GDP per capita is up from $36,500 to $54,200, about 50%. France is up from $29,500 to $38,600, about 30%. The forecast for 2021 has France at $41,100 and the U.S. at $60,100: https://tradingeconomics.com/forecast/gdp-per-capita-ppp?con.... That means in 30 years, Americans will have gone from being modestly richer than the French (24%) to being quite a bit richer than the French (50%). To put that into perspective, the 50% gap from France to the U.S. is the same as the gap from Turkey to France.

Perhaps there are other incentives besides the threat of the destruction of livelihood that might work?