The government is presenting, this Wednesday, June 7, its bill “for full employment”, which should give birth to France Travail, successor to Pôle emploi, and set up more personalized and directive support for RSA recipients (around of 1.8 million beneficiaries) who hardly benefited from the drop in unemployment. The executive is counting on this transformation to achieve full employment, i.e. an unemployment rate of around 5% in 2027 (against 7.1% currently) by targeting people who are far from employment. Despite the sharp drop in unemployment in recent years and labor shortages in many sectors, the number of RSA beneficiaries has hardly decreased since 2017.
Among the novelties brought by France Travail, each registered with France Travail will have to sign “a contract of engagement” with his adviser. The objective set: define the objectives and the intensity of the support. This contract will include “an action plan with social and professional integration objectives” according to “the needs of the person”, underline our colleagues from France info. It is within this framework that renewed support for RSA recipients is being tested in eighteen departments with the sensitive issue of 15 to 20 hours of work per week.
Not formally included in the bill, these hours (immersions, refreshers, CV writing, etc.) will be an “adapted” objective for everyone, said Olivier Dussopt, the Minister of Labor. In concrete terms, these job seekers may be obliged to attend workshops, training courses or “immersion actions”. These hours may be claimed if this is “relevant” for the person concerned. It will be “neither free work nor compulsory volunteering”, he repeated in the face of the fears of associations fighting against poverty.
“Logic of rights and duties”
For the Minister of Labour, “what fails is the support. In total, 350,000 recipients have no follow-up and we are not left with our duty of solidarity with 607 euros” (note, RSA for single person). In a survey published at the start of the year, 61% of RSA beneficiaries said they had had a “need for help in professional or social matters” which was not satisfied. In the event of breach of the “commitment contract”, Matignon wants to make sanctions “more progressive” and “more just”.
Before the ax of a radiation – little applied – the adviser will now be able, unless opposed by the president of the departmental council, to suspend the payment of the RSA in the event of breach. Concretely, if he does not meet the objectives set by his “contract of engagement”, the RSA will no longer be paid to him. The sum not collected during the suspension will be distributed retroactively, “as soon as the person respects his commitments”, according to the Prime Minister.
In this “logic of rights and duties”, the bill makes it easier to implement sanctions for recipients who do not meet their obligations. The government wants “to subject RSA recipients to the same control as the unemployed”, “it deeply stigmatizes them”, denounced Sophie Binet (CGT) while for Marylise Léon (CFDT), the conditionality of RSA “is a red line” .
The text examined in the Senate at the beginning of July
To strengthen the support, there will be “additional means”, assured Olivier Dussopt, while referring to the discussions on the next budget. The report prefiguring the reform quantified its cost “between 2 and 2.5 billion euros cumulatively until 2027”. The text, which will first be examined in the Senate at the beginning of July, has two other parts: one on disability, which aims to improve the access of people with disabilities to employment in the ordinary environment and the other on the small childhood which recognizes the municipalities as “organizing authorities” of reception, with the mission of identifying needs, informing families and building the offer.
Emmanuel Macron’s campaign promise – “falling like a meteorite” according to an employment sector manager – the creation of France Travail aims to better coordinate the actors of the public employment service. In essence, it is a matter of having a single point of entry for all people seeking employment or encountering integration difficulties. Including RSA beneficiaries, only 40% of whom are currently registered with Pôle Emploi.