In his general policy speech, the Prime Minister considered that it was necessary to “de-emphasize France”, promising a reform on low wages.
“In France we have a paradox: we have a minimum wage, a minimum wage, significantly higher than that of our neighbors and we are proud of it. But we have a much larger share of our workers close to the minimum wage than our neighbors, that is is a problem.” Raising this observation during his general policy speech to the National Assembly this Tuesday, January 30, 2024, Gabriel Attal announced his desire to remedy the situation, drawing the famous formula: “We must dismantle France.” Concretely, the Prime Minister wants a reform on low wages, “as soon as the next finance bill”, he said.
Gabriel Attal put forward the idea of taking action to start with the professional branches, while around thirty, according to him, at the end of 2023, still continued to pay certain employees below the minimum wage. The Prime Minister assured him that to achieve his goals, he is not ruling out “any measure”. The head of government also wants the evolution of our system, which, according to him, “has led us, for decades, to concentrate our aid, our exemptions, at the level of the minimum wage”. To illustrate his point, Gabriel Attal gave the example of an employer who would like to increase his employee’s minimum wage by 100 euros. While the boss will have to pay 238 euros more, the employee will lose “39 euros of activity bonus, will see his CSG and his social security contributions increase by 26 euros and could pay income tax”. For the Prime Minister, the system today is such that neither the employer nor the employee has an interest in increasing this minimum wage. It is therefore the entire system that he calls for reform.