It’s the status quo again. On Wednesday, July 31, a decree published in the Official Journal extended the unemployment insurance compensation rules currently in force until October 31, postponing the implementation of the reform introduced by the resigning government to that same date. On July 1, these rules had already been extended for the first time for a month, after Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced the suspension of the unemployment insurance reform on the evening of the first round of the legislative elections.
Pending a new government, probably not for several weeks, the executive has again extended “the regulatory provisions relating to the rules of compensation and contributions of the unemployment insurance scheme”, to avoid a legal vacuum. And this until October 31 and no longer September 30 as initially planned, “on the technical advice of the Council of State”, a union source told AFP last week. It will then be up to the next government to decide on the rules from November 1, while the New Popular Front, which came out on top in the legislative elections but without having an absolute majority in the National Assembly, has pledged to repeal the reform promised by the Attal government.
Reduce the duration of compensation
It must be said that the latter had caused a lot of ink to flow among the opposition. The reform was to reduce the maximum duration of compensation from 18 to 15 months for people under 57 from December 1st, but also to impose having worked eight months out of the last 20 months to be compensated, compared to six months in the last 24 months currently. The presidential camp had repeated that it was assuming this reform in the name of full employment, banking on a gain of 3.6 billion euros and the creation of 90,000 jobs.
The unions, for their part, have always been fiercely opposed to this reform, which is in addition to those of 2021 and 2023, fearing increased precariousness for the unemployed, particularly among young people and seniors. In mid-June, in a joint press release, the eight union confederations (CFDT, CGT, FO, CFE-CGC, CFTC, UNSA, Solidaires and FSU) urged the government to “abandon the most useless, unjust and violent reform ever seen”. “Every time we have had reforms around work since 2017, they have encountered opposition: unemployment insurance, work orders, apprenticeships, professional training… but they have borne fruit”, the Prime Minister justified for his part.