New crisis in perspective for the government at the start of the school year. By unveiling his roadmap on Tuesday for the 2026 budget, François Bayrou attracted wrath of all political edges. In addition to the abolition of two holidays, another proposal is unanimously against it among unions and in the ranks of the left: the possibility for voluntary employees to monetize their fifth week of paid leave, on the model of what already exists for RTT.
These holidays, during which employees continue to be paid by the company, “are part of the Doxa of the French left, whose history is confused with this social conquest of paid holidays”, underlines Jean Garrigues, historian and president of the parliamentary and political history committee.
A political taboo on the left
This fifth week of rest was won in 1982 by the government of Pierre Mauroy, more than forty years after the victory of the CGT, which had obtained two weeks of paid holidays for workers and workers. To attack today “to this taboo linked to the history of the left and unionism” is “politically suicidal, in particular in the perspective of a possible motion of censorship”, warns Jean Garrigues.
While François Bayrou needs to be in the good graces of the Socialist Party and the National Rally to avoid suffering the same fate as his predecessor, he therefore seems to press the bad button. This proposal “is added to a long list” of reasons to vote censorship, annoys the deputy PS Mickaël Bouloux. As for Marine Le Pen, she could also oppose it to preserve her worker electorate.
This maneuver by the head of government is then “quite difficult to understand, unless it is to return to it later and solve a problem that he himself created”, analyzes the elected socialist of Ille-et-Vilaine. For their part, the unions are standing, like Nathalie Bazire, confederal leader of the CGT, who bitterly regrets “this decline in social gains”. “What is announced is serious,” she adds. “A museum of horrors”, abounds the secretary general of the CFDT Marylise Léon on France Inter.
Meager compensation
If the question of purchasing power is “the number one subject”, “it is not up to the employees themselves to pay for a little more room for maneuver to complete the end of the month by cutting off on their holidays,” she developed. Especially since the benefit over the year may not make a big difference on bank accounts. “If it is to recover around 300 euros over the year, it seems extremely weak and it is far from a shock for purchasing power,” points out the political scientist Virginie Martin.
“It may especially risk putting implicit pressure on employees and developing competition between employees,” she fears. Especially since this solution “could replace the increases in wages and weaken the employee’s negotiation power”, warns the teacher-researcher in the economy at the Center for Employment and Work Damien Sauze.
Weigh down the burden of workers
“The risk is also to reduce hires, because we can use it to avoid replacing departures,” analyzes the teacher-researcher. Why increase the workload of those who already work, instead of creating jobs and lowering the unemployment rate? “The growth through work is based on a small number of people and the pressure is increased on them,” wonders Virginie Martin.
All our items on the budget
The State has not advanced data on the number of workers and the activity sectors that would be ready to volunteer. Difficult, therefore, to encrypt the potential benefits. But for Jean Garrigues, the French are in any case mainly “hostile to any regression of their social rights”.
