The text makes it possible to modulate by decree certain rules of unemployment insurance so that it is “stricter when too many jobs are not filled, more generous when unemployment is high”.
Le Monde with AFP
The Parliament definitively adopted Thursday, November 17, the bill paving the way for a modulation of unemployment insurance according to the economic situation, a perspective which bristles the left, the extreme right and the unions. The senators ratified Thursday noon a compromise found with the deputies on this text, which did not require the use of the constitutional weapon of the 49.3 thanks to an agreement concluded with the right.
The bill of the Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt, initially plans to extend the current rules of unemployment insurance, resulting from a disputed reform of the first Macron five-year term. A decree was taken in this sense in advance at the end of October. It also makes it possible to modulate by decree certain rules of unemployment insurance so that it is “stricter when too many jobs are not filled, more generous when unemployment is high”, in accordance with the campaign promise by Emmanuel Macron.
A consultation is underway with the social partners and the government will make known “the arbitrations selected” on November 21, for an application of modulation at the beginning of 2023. “We are working on a modulation of the Maxim duration [ALE] compensation “, currently from twenty-four to thirty-six months depending on the age, Dussopt told deputies on Tuesday. Thus “we do not plan to modify the conditions of affiliation to the unemployment insurance system”.
It takes six months of work over a reference period of twenty-four months for the opening of rights. The executive believes that there is an emergency due to the difficulties of recruiting businesses and makes this reform a foundation stone of its strategy to reach full employment in 2027, an unemployment rate of around 5 %, against 7.4 % currently.
“We did not fold”
Deputies and senators reached a compromise on this text in joint joint committee last week, at the cost of a hardening imposed by the Senators Les Républicains (LR), to which the Minister was initially opposed. It has been added that the refusal twice in one year of an indefinite contract (CDI) after a fixed -term contract (CDD) or an temporary contract at the same position, at the same place and with the same remuneration would result in the loss of unemployment compensation. It will be up to the employer (or two employers) to inform Pôle Emploi, which poses a “technical difficulty” so that it is not a “gas factory”, judged Mr. Dussopt. “The government did not want it, but we did not fold,” said Frédérique Puissat (LR), a rapporteur of the text in the Senate. His counterpart in the Assembly, Marc Ferracci (Renaissance), finds the measure “little operational and fragile legally”, and sees “a somewhat ideological approach, even if there is a real subject on the refusal of CDI”.
Another provision, added by amendments to the presidential majority and LR deputies, is still a debate: “the abandonment of post” will now be assimilated to a resignation, to limit access to unemployment insurance. The right -wing elected officials “were force of proposal, both in the assembly and in the Senate”, insists the deputy LR Stéphane Viry, who considers however that the bill “does not exhaust” the reforms to be carried out.
In unison of the unions, the critical left, it, “a right reform” whose objective would be to “lower the compensation of the unemployed”. Before the final vote Tuesday in the Assembly, acquired by 210 votes against 140, the “rebellious” defended, in vain, a final motion of rejection of this text which, according to them, gives “a disposable vision of employees”. The socialists announced a referral to the Constitutional Council. The deputies Rally National (RN) also voted against the text, which according to them, “punishment and guilt on the agenda”. The bill also provides for the opening of consultation on the governance of unemployment insurance and a “drastic simplification” of the validation of experience acquired (VAE), according to the Minister Delegate, Carole Grandjean.