Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced on Tuesday the abolition of the specific solidarity allowance (ASS) for unemployed people at the end of their rights and will request a review of the rules of unemployment insurance if its financial trajectory “deviates”. The ASS “allows, without working, to validate quarters” while “we consider that retirement must be the fruit of work”, argued the head of government in his general policy declaration, highlighting his desire to “ combat inactivity traps”. “So we will propose the switch to the solidarity allowance specific to the RSA and the elimination of this allowance,” continued the Prime Minister.
At the end of 2019, 351,000 people received the specific solidarity allowance (ASS), according to the statistical department of social ministries (Drees). More generally, “we must go further in the reform of unemployment insurance”, indicated Gabriel Attal, recalling that a negotiation was launched between social partners “in favor of the employment of seniors, the prevention of the professional wear and tear of career paths and retraining. The approval by the executive of a new unemployment insurance agreement, signed in November by employers and certain trade union organizations, also depends on the outcome of this negotiation at the end of March.
Also read: Were you convinced by Gabriel Attal’s general policy statement?
Gabriel Attal reiterated the government’s “full employment objective”. “We must increasingly encourage people to return to work, and I will be extremely attentive to the evolution of the financial trajectory of unemployment insurance,” he warned. The government demands that the agreement on senior employment generates at least 440 million euros in savings over the period 2024-2027, thanks in particular to raising the age thresholds from which older unemployed people are entitled to unemployment benefits. longer compensation.
If the financial trajectory “deviates”, the head of government will not hesitate “as the law allows, to ask the social partners to put the work back on track, on the basis of a new framework letter”. The Prime Minister also announced that the government will initiate “after the summer a new stage of labor law reform” allowing VSEs and SMEs to “negotiate certain rules directly, company by company”.
“We understood that the new keyword of the Prime Minister and the President of the Republic was rearmament. To hear them, we have the impression that this rearmament is against the world of work,” commented the general secretary of the CGT, Sophie Binet, to AFP.
“When we have already not been a fan of season 1, there is little chance that season 2 (of the labor market reform announced by Emmanuel Macron, Editor’s note) will be good,” quipped the leader of the CFTC, Cyril Chabanier. “I’m a little afraid that we are in the process of disarming employees, civil servants and the unemployed,” he insisted.
For François Hommeril (CFE-CGC), “the world is turned upside down”: “2024 promises to be quite a difficult year (…) and what the Prime Minister is telling us is that he doesn’t care about the difficulty and suffering of people who are unemployed. They are the ones who will pay because the State wants to recover 10, 12 or 15 billion euros.”
Concerning the desire displayed by the Prime Minister to fight against low wages to “de-emphasize France”, Cyril Chabanier welcomed a “positive” speech even if he said he regretted that there had not been “measures that “we could have hoped” such as “a boost to the minimum wage”.
“The elements of demicardization do not go any further for the moment,” also regretted the number 2 of the CFDT, Yvan Ricordeau.
