For all workers, work without pay 7 hours more per year. It is a proposal that made its way into the parliamentary debate on the 2025 social security budget, before being adopted by the Senate late in the evening, this Wednesday, November 20. After extensive discussions, the upper house finally approved this measure by 216 votes to 119, which would be added to the “day of solidarity” already practiced and aimed at old age and disability. The government said it was unfavorable to this proposal “at this stage” but open to “reworking” it with the social partners.
The measure is not final, it will be debated next week during a joint committee bringing together deputies and senators, responsible for finding a compromise on this text promised in 49.3 during its final passage in the National Assembly. But the Upper Assembly and its majority alliance of right and center, valuable support of Michel Barnier’s government, wanted to leave its mark on the flammable budgetary debates of the fall, while the government is seeking 60 billion euros to make up the deficit. “We are not making this proposal lightly”, but “today, we must find ways” to “finance the old age wall, the residential shift and the transformation of our nursing homes”, insisted the senator centrist Élisabeth Doineau.
More “flexible” terms
The Senate text echoes the debate on the elimination of a public holiday, a long-standing senatorial proposal, but proposes a more “flexible” system, which leaves the hand to the social partners to decline the modalities of implementation (a day per year, “ten minutes per week”, “two minutes per day”…). In return for this “solidarity contribution through work”, employers would see their solidarity contribution rate for autonomy increase from 0.3% to 0.6%.
The left was indignant at the proposal, criticizing for example “a hell of an attack on the working world” according to communist senator Cathy Apourceau-Poly, who responded with a touch of sarcasm by proposing a “dividend solidarity day” to make shareholders contribute. The Minister of Public Accounts Laurent Saint-Martin considered that the reform should not be implemented in this way through an amendment. But “that this can be reworked with the social partners, I think that could be a good idea”, because it would be “hypocritical to reject this debate out of hand”, he added. If Prime Minister Michel Barnier was “very reserved” about the proposal, the Minister of the Economy Antoine Armand considered it “interesting”.
At the heart of the examination of the Social Security budget, the Senate also gave its approval to a government measure targeting apprentices: the latter will now be partially subject to two social contributions (CSG and CRDS), for an estimated gain of 360 million euros per year. The upper house, however, limited the system to contracts signed from January 1, 2025.