France: Bayrou wants to save billions on unemployment insurance

If they agree to open a negotiation on unemployment insurance, employers and unions are invited to agree by November 15 and to release between “2 billion euros and 2.5 billion euros” in savings per year on average over the next four years, “with a progressive rise in charge” to reach “at least 4 billion euros in cruise savings from 2030”, according to this document.

In order to “promote the rapid return to employment”, the framing document adds that it will be necessary to “modify the minimum duration of employment and the reference period necessary for the opening of a right to unemployment which determines the maximum duration of compensation”.

“The financial situation of the unemployment insurance scheme and the need to work more numerous makes it necessary to evolve the rules of unemployment insurance,” writes the Prime Minister, François Bayrou, in his letter to the social partners accompanying the framing document.

Arguing that “you have to work more”, François Bayrou wished on July 15 that the social partners open such negotiations on unemployment insurance to participate in the budgetary effort.

The unions had then greeted with anger the government’s budgetary avenues and the announcement of these negotiations, in particular the new screw tour on unemployment insurance, qualified as “total carnage for job seekers” by the number one of the CFDT, Marylise Léon

This new reform comes when the social partners concluded an agreement in November 2024, with new rules for four years, mostly in force on April 1 of this year.