Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced Wednesday evening on TF 1 that he wanted to ask the social partners to open new negotiations on unemployment insurance this year. He plans to reduce the duration of compensation by “several months” by keeping a minimum of 12 months, compared to 18 months today for those under 53. It also
plans
to increase the duration of affiliation, i.e. the time one must have worked to be entitled to compensation, as well as “the level of unemployment compensation”.
“I want us to have the parameters of this reform in the summer so that it can come into force by the fall, as I committed to,” he explained, adding: “ My objective is not to attack a particular individual or the unemployed, it is to move a system to encourage more people to return to work.” On the other hand, he remained open about the duration of compensation for seniors. This subject should be the subject of an employer and union agreement on April 10. “In the avenues that are put forward, we are hearing about a two-year increase in the age limit for the senior sector, which would be consistent with the latest pension reform,” he underlined.
Read also Duration and conditions of compensation, degression… What will Attal version unemployment insurance look like?
Obviously, the unions immediately reacted to the announcement of these new avenues. “The unemployment insurance system cannot be a state budgetary adjustment variable! », Launched the general secretary of the CFDT Marylise Léon, adding that her union “will continue to push demands so that efforts are equitably distributed” between employees and employers. “A new reform has been announced, this will not prevent us from completing the current negotiations and respecting our commitments, the CFDT will continue to push demands so that efforts are fairly distributed,” added the leader of the first French union.
“Absolute cynicism”
More virulent, Denis Gravouil, negotiator for the CGT in the negotiations on unemployment insurance, considered that “it is unacceptable in method and in substance, the only thing announced by Gabriel Attal this evening is again to type on the precarious or the unemployed”. And added: “There had already been reductions in rights for seniors in the last unemployment reform and we would still have to add reductions in rights for the precarious, degressions, shorter durations of compensation for all. world ".
Michel Beaugas (FO) denounced for his part, “a beautiful fable” from the Prime Minister “according to which it is unemployment insurance which prevents employers from hiring”.
For his part, the president of the managers' union François Hommeril attacked the "absolute cynicism of this speech which ignores the situation of an unemployed person faced with the difficulty of finding a job". “It is “the characterization of what a populist speech is, that is to say ignoring the facts, defying reality without any qualms,” he added.
Finally, the leader of the CFTC, Cyril Chabanier, said he was “very worried”. “Making it more difficult to access unemployment or lowering compensation is something that doesn’t work, it has never worked.”