France is currently wrapped up in strikes and protests against a new labor law, commonly referred to as the El Khomri law, after its author. Students, unions, and others are protesting a law that is widely held as being ineffective at best (in improving the economy) and damaging at worst (by furthering a precarious job market in the country).

In some ways, these protests are correct — there is a growing uncertainty regarding jobs, and the solutions in the new law don’t seem to please anyone. But long-term solutions aren’t being seriously proposed by the protesters, either. Instead, it’s a cry of, “No, no, no!” when what is needed is, “No — this instead!”

France is, however, in an envious position, if it is able to step back and realize it. There are numerous reasons that I believe this to be the case.

The first is that France doesn’t really like the idea of work. If Americans see work as an obligation (in the hopes of not being bankrupted by a health emergency or similar situation) or a passion (in the best of cases), the French see work as a punishment.*

(*These are huge stereotypes used here to describe a general attitude and frame the argument, not a slight on any particular individual; nor is it an endorsement of the US outlook on work.)

What if, in France, the majority of people would be happier pursuing a part-time passion rather than a full-time job. That may be the case in other countries too, but I believe it’s a relatively well-developed desire in France. The country’s leisure and intellectual industries have impressive histories, and should be exploited in a jobless future*.

(*The future will not be jobless. But given the rapidly advancing fields of machine learning and AI, my money is on the ‘job elimination’ curve advancing much more quickly than the ‘job creation’ curve; what’s more, if you look at, say, how many workers Google employs compared to how many people AT&T employed during the 1960s, you can see that the trend is already here.)

And that’s why France’s current attitude, if used correctly, could be a benefit. If France decided to lead the way toward the jobless future in a real way, they could overcome the issues currently being debated and protested, while also becoming a global leader pushing toward a sustainable and growing economy of the future.

How to actually do that? First, figure out the economics of a universal basic income. This is the basis from which questions regarding lost jobs and fewer but more intellectually/creatively-taxing employment opportunities will begin to be answered.

Next, encourage the idea of a job as an opportunity rather than a necessity. Tomorrow’s jobs will not have the same patterns as those found prior to the Digital Age. Adaptation, creativity, intelligence and a love of change are needed. No one is going to learn a skill and then keep using it for the rest of their working life. Your job today should be seen as an opportunity to do something cool, and your job tomorrow is something that can’t be foreseen.

Finally, promote passions. This is true for both work (where passion can lead to rewarding employment, even in a part-time capacity) and for leisure time. There are a series of needs in the world that can be addressed when we decouple a job from the ability to live a respectable life.

Without the need to work in order to live, is it not likely that we could find many people happy to work with children, to aid the elderly, to cook meals for their neighbors, to teach strangers a new language, to volunteer their time in any number of activities?

Obviously, this isn’t a series of suggestions for France only. But again, France is in a uniquely favorable position today, which by the way is a positive outlook that 99.9999% of the country would have you put into a mental institution for declaring. Becoming a world leader isn’t going to arise through the El Khomri law or by its revocation (coucou, déchéance de la nationalité ;)

Instead, it will come by completely upending the problem. Don’t ask, “What laws can we create to encourage jobs?” Instead, start asking, “What can we do to make it so that jobs are an option to be encouraged?”