-In this case, Norway. The public sector are required to publish all available positions and adhere quite strictly to the listed qualification requirements when determining who to hire.

It is a nice idea, but in practice it basically means the system will be gamed like I experienced in the cases where they already have a candidate lined up.

This is true in the UK. At least, we are trained that we must have a paper trail to show we picked the best candidate, so you have to think carefully about which requirements are essential vs optional. I'm not sure what the law says, but the aim is more to avoid lawsuits than to find out I guess.

Closely tailored requirements to pick the candidate already in mind are definitely a thing that still happens, though. It annoys me as it wastes the time of everyone from the hiring manager through to the unsuccessful candidates, but alas we're all slaves to HR :( Lol at the Swahili thing, I've not seen it so blatant before!

Definitely France, and quite possibly this is a law ratified into EU law. For example, if a French company wants to hire a specific American (or any non EU citizen) person, they need to prove that the position is unfillable in France, and then unfillable in Europe. The leads to incredibly obscure job adverts as explained in this thread ..

A similar thing happens in countries where you must justify visa applications by proving that nobody in the existing hiring pool fits the criteria.