Towards a new episode of divisions for the executive and its majority? After the plagues of the immigration law, those of the new unemployment insurance reform? Considered by Gabriel Attal, it should provide for a reduction of “several months” in the duration of compensation for the unemployed, currently 18 months for those under 53, without going below 12 months. Several members of Macronie have increased their warnings against this government project, which comes in the context of slippage in public accounts, since France has recorded a deficit of 5.5% of GDP in 2023, much more than the 4.9% initially planned.
But “let’s be clear: this is not a financial reform. We are not doing it to save money but to achieve full employment, that is to say a 5% unemployment rate”, assured Saturday has West France Bruno Le Maire. “We are not targeting the unemployed,” promised the Minister of the Economy. This reading was, however, strongly contested this Sunday, March 31, by Sacha Houlié, on the stage of the Grand Jury RTL/Le Figaro/M6. “If we reduce the duration of compensation, for what purposes are we doing it? A cost-saving measure. Do I think we should make a cost-saving measure for the unemployed today? I don’t don’t think so,” said the chairman of the Assembly’s Law Committee.
The elected official from Vienna argued that the executive had already reformed unemployment insurance twice, in 2019 and 2023, in particular by implementing a “countercyclicality” measure, that is to say that Compensation conditions tighten when unemployment falls, and become more flexible when it increases. “Is there a need for a new reform on this subject even though we see that unemployment is no longer falling,” he asked, considering that the “rules” were already “severe”. “From the moment I see that it is not the return to employment which is the motivation, that it is savings which are sought, I say that this is not the right path,” he said. -He insists.
“Too hard”
According to Sacha Houlié, several executives from the majority hold the same line as him regarding the government’s project, citing the president of the Economic Affairs Committee Stéphane Travert, the vice-president of the Renaissance group Marc Ferracci, and the Paris MP Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet. All early walkers. Thus the latter estimated, Friday, that “reducing the duration of unemployment compensation for seniors would be unfair”, judging on the social network but to make professions that are not attractive […] and remove central obstacles to employment.
For his part, Marc Ferracci considered that the “priority” was to “touch the eligibility criterion”, that is to say the number of months worked to be compensated. “Afterwards, if the government wants to change the duration, it will have the opportunity to do so,” he said. Thursday on France 2. This Sunday, another supporter of the left wing distanced himself: Clément Beaune, removed from the government in January after expressing his reservations on the immigration law. “We must be careful and consistent,” he stressed on France Info, calling to be “more protective” because “the job market is doing less well”. The former Minister of Transport also recognized that there was a risk of precariousness for the most vulnerable “if we moved towards parameters that are too harsh”.
“Gabriel Attal never presented this reform as an economic measure” but as “a measure to boost revenues”, assures AFP in return an advisor to the executive, noting that the Prime Minister had taken careful to bring together majority deputies, including some from the left wing, before launching his leads to the news on Wednesday. “Those who were present were rather comfortable with the project”, affirms the same, limiting the differences to “a minority within the group”. A work of conviction that the Prime Minister will repeat on Tuesday, by going before the Renaissance deputies. Hoping not to add the threat of a political front to the social front.