Working seven extra hours a year… “for free”. The measure should not please the French. However, it is put back on the table by the government which hopes to finance Social Security and the elderly sector.
Voted by the Senate as part of the Social Security finance bill (PLFSS) last November, this proposal was rejected by the deputies of the National Assembly. Censorship from the Barnier government obliges, the PLFSS returns to the negotiating table at the end of January, with this famous measure. In an interview given to Sunday newspaper On January 19, the Minister of Labor, Catherine Vautrin, estimated that “reducing the deficit will require savings and work”. “The senators, in the Social Security financing bill that they voted for, propose to work seven hours more during the year, or ten minutes more each week,” she highlighted , emphasizing that “this measure can, in 2025, generate two billion euros in revenue earmarked for social spending”.
On application, the text adopted by the senators was intended to be rather “flexible”. “Total flexibility will be left to those involved in the field to define their [modalités d’accomplissement] according to their needs and their organization”, detailed the amendment. Concretely, companies and social partners would have the possibility to choose whether these 7 hours of work will result in the elimination of a day of leave or RTT, or if employees will be invited to stay two minutes more per day at work, for example, on the same principle put in place by the SNCF when it established Pentecost Monday as a day of solidarity.
The ball in the parliamentarians’ court
The fact remains that for the moment, nothing has yet been decided. “The government will respect the upcoming parliamentary debate on the subject,” said Catherine Vautrin in the columns of JDD. And the Minister Delegate for Public Accounts, Amélie de Montchalin, added in this sense on France 3 : “This is an avenue that is on the table, but it is up to parliamentarians to see if they want to move forward together on this subject.”
To hear the first feedback coming to us from the Bourbon Palace, the measure seems to be off to a bad start. The left would indeed be up against this measure, while the unions already denounce an “unfair” contribution because it is “financed only by employees” in particular. On the right, certain deputies would not share the point of view of the senators either, relays RMC. As for the National Rally, Marine Le Pen denounced on It’s hard to believe that his views could have radically changed in two months.