ED Droit
THE PROCESS OF REGIONALIZATION OF LABOR LAW IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: CURRENT STATUS AND PATHWAYS FOR REVITALIZATION
by Sèmèdéton Gautier MAKOUTODE (COMPTRASEC - Centre de Droit Comparé de Travail et de la Sécurité Sociale)
The defense will take place at 14h00 - Salle des thèses Faculté de droit de l'Université de Bordeaux Bâtiment C, Travée C1 16 avenue Léon Duguit 33608 Pessac Cedex
in front of the jury composed of
- Valérie LACOSTE-MARY - Maîtresse de conférences - Université de Bordeaux - Directeur de these
- Éric MONTCHO-AGBASSA - Professeur - Université d'Abomey-Calavi - Rapporteur
- Lucas BENTO DE CARVALHO - Professeur des universités - Université de Montpellier - Rapporteur
- François PETIT - Maître de conférences - Université de Bordeaux - Examinateur
This thesis analyzes the prospects for harmonizing labour law in Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa within the context of regional integration dynamics, in light of the European experience. The intensification of economic exchanges, the growing mobility of the workforce, and the requirements of decent work promoted by the International Labour Organization reinforce the need to establish a coherent regional legal framework. Harmonization thus emerges as a major issue for legal certainty, economic competitiveness, and social justice. The objective of this research is to identify the institutional and legal conditions likely to foster the gradual emergence of a harmonized labour law within West African integration frameworks. The first part examines the initiatives undertaken within the Organisation for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa and the Economic Community of West African States. The analysis highlights the ambivalence of these projects. On the one hand, they reflect the intention to promote a common foundation of labour law standards inspired by international norms and fundamental principles. On the other hand, their implementation faces significant challenges arising from the diversity of national legal systems, economic disparities, and the institutional constraints of member states. The centralized model of the Organisation for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa, based on binding instruments, raises the question of its adaptability to national realities, while the more flexible approach of the Economic Community of West African States, grounded in coordination, raises issues regarding its effectiveness and normative coherence. The study thus demonstrates that harmonization cannot be reduced to a mere uniformization of rules but must be embedded in a gradual process that takes into account political, economic, and social contexts. The second part proposes an alternative approach based on gradual harmonization within the West African Economic and Monetary Union. This regional framework appears conducive to deeper legal integration due to the proximity of legal systems, the existence of relatively consolidated community institutions, and an advanced dynamic of economic integration. The research advocates a hybrid model combining the adoption of community directives with the use of the Open Method of Coordination, in order to establish common standards while preserving national specificities. Priority areas include occupational health and safety, employment contracts, working time, dismissal, vocational training, and the right to strike. The thesis finally emphasizes that the adoption of common norms alone cannot guarantee the success of the process. Effectiveness is a decisive condition and requires strengthening labour administrations, improving monitoring mechanisms, involving national courts, and ensuring the participation of social partners. Normative harmonization should also be accompanied by a gradual convergence of social protection systems in order to support a form of regional integration oriented toward social progress. At the end of the study, the harmonization of labour law appears as a progressive and pragmatic process, which could find within the West African Economic and Monetary Union a framework for experimentation, potentially inspiring broader regional integration initiatives in the future.
ED Sciences Physiques et de l'Ingénieur
Experimental and numerical methods for the thermal characterisation of adaptive building envelope elements
by Asmae MOUTAOIKIL (I2M - Institut de Mécanique et d'Ingénierie de Bordeaux)
The defense will take place at 9h00 - Amphithéâtre 1 Université de Bordeaux, Avenue de la Libération, Bâtiment A9, 33400 Talence
in front of the jury composed of
- Laurent MORA - Professeur des universités - Université de Bordeaux - Directeur de these
- Christian INARD - Professeur des universités - Université de La Rochelle - CoDirecteur de these
- Didier DEFER - Professeur des universités - Université d'Artois - Rapporteur
- Simon ROUCHIER - Maître de conférences - Université Savoie Mont Blanc - Rapporteur
- Valérie LEPILLER - Docteure - Université Marie et Louis Pasteur - Examinateur
- Camille MAGNIONT - Professeure des universités - Université de Technologie Tarbes Occitanie Pyrénées - Examinateur
- Thomas RECHT - Maître de conférences - Université de Bordeaux - Examinateur
European union aim to carbon neutrality target by 2050, and the architecture must contribute to achieve this objective, especially that building sector account for 40% of final energy consumption and 36% of greenhouse gas emission of European union. The building envelope façade is an interface between the indoor and outdoor environment. Thus, it is governing the heat loss during winter, solar gain during summer and natural daylight etc. which in turn can impact the heating and cooling loads energy consumption as well as occupant's comfort. In this context, adaptive façade appeared to be a promising solution to address these challenges. This façade type is defined as a building envelope element that can change its properties according to boundary conditions and used control systems. However, the thermal characterization of such a system remains challenging. An adaptive façade is characterized with a dynamic thermal behaviour, and it can take advantage of climate conditions to ensure occupant's comfort and reduce heating and cooling loads energy consumption. Despite this potential, the application in construction of these façade type encounter various challenges. The existing standards and methods to characterize the thermal performance of façade are based on a hypothesis which consider material properties as static. The calculated key performance indicator (KPI) is thus resumed to one value, which does not consider the dynamic states of an adaptive façade. In addition, the use of a simulation tool to model those states require a modelling of each state that may change rapidly according to climate conditions and control operations, which complicate the thermal characterization of adaptive façade. Moreover, these challenges can impact the early-design stage phase of an adaptive façade, particularly the optimal design and façade orientation selection, within the corresponding control operations. Therefore, the main contribution of this thesis is to propose a hybrid general methodology based on experimental scenarios and a numerical model to characterize thermal performance of adaptive façade, in order to estimate a corresponding key performance indicator. To this aim, the methodology proposed is organized into two main steps: the first step is based on characterizing the outdoor test cell with a reference façade, in order to isolate the main contribution of the adaptive façade. Those measurements are used to calibrate the test cell and validate the numerical model. The second step correspond to characterize the adaptive façade. Since this later can modulate one or more thermal phenomena that require a specific experimental protocols and model adjustment. To apply this methodology, a case of study was conducted to evaluate the direct thermal transmittance of a sunshade with diagonal slats. Using a dedicated outdoor test cell equipped with a double glazing. An RC model combined with experimental measurements is used to estimate the dynamic solar transmittance of the diagonal shading device. Those results are compared with the theoretical direct solar transmittance calculated by a ray tracing technic: (BSDF, Bidirectional Scattering Distribution Function), the resulted CV(RMSE) between both is 24%. To assess the effectiveness of this prototype, different façade orientations were experimented, which leads to an early design stage decision of the south orientation as the optimal orientation for this configuration. This work contributes to the dynamic solar transmittance estimation in function of solar incidence angle and local azimuth for complex geometry shading device.