Formazione continua e transizione ecologica: alcune suggestioni dal sistema francese

The essay focuses on the topic of workers’ lifelong learning for the ecological transition. The green upskilling and reskilling are fundamental both for the conversion of companies towards a more environmentally friendly production, as well as for the protection of employment levels and workers’ professionalism. In the first part of the essay, the French legal system is taken as a reference, as an excellent term of comparison. After an analysis of its workers’ lifelong learning system, the author focuses on the latest legislative innovations, regarding the inclusion of continuous ecological training among the subjects of information and consultation procedures and collective bargaining. At the same time, he analyzes the original contributions of the social partners in the recent Accord National Interprofessionnel du 11 avril 2023 relatif à la transition écologique et au dialogue social. The author then proceeds with the analysis of other instruments that have found in the French PNRR an additional source of funding. In the second part of the paper, instead, after a brief reconstruction of the Italian system of continuous training and its gaps, the author highlights, by analyzing the new instruments resulting from the emergency legislation and the Italian PNRR, the new spaces reserved for continuous training for the ecological transition, with a particular focus on the New Skills Fund. In conclusion, considering the comparison between the two systems, some suggestions are drawn from the French system to improve the Italian system of workers’ lifelong learning, especially to face the twin transition, ecological and digital, underway.