MPs launch examination of “full employment” bill, castigated on the left

The left, up against measures deemed "infantilizing" towards the most precarious such as RSA recipients, defended in vain a global "motion to reject" the text, largely rejected (148 votes against 62).

“We must put an end to the totem of aid against poverty which, because without compensation, would be in essence better than all the others,” launched the Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt, who is carrying this text already adopted in the first place. reading in the Senate.

“It is to be supported globally, to be included in the work that the most fragile need,” he argued, calling out to the Insoumis deputies who questioned him: “Don’t speak work, you don't know.

To achieve the objective of an unemployment rate of 5% by 2027, its text proposes better coordination of the multiple actors of the public employment service. With the keystone being the Pôle Emploi operator, renamed “France Travail”.

Mandatory activities

The stated priority is to better target people furthest from employment, in particular RSA beneficiaries, for “more personalized and more intensive support”.

These beneficiaries - as well as certain young people monitored by local missions and people monitored by a professional integration organization for disabled people - would now be placed on the list of job seekers.

MPs from the Nupes coalition and the RN strongly opposed this automatic registration, judging that it did not take into account particular situations.

They also criticized the fact that the spouses of RSA beneficiaries are also included on this list. Only those with a monthly income of less than 500 euros, insisted Olivier Dussopt. It will be “a checklist”, launched the communist Pierre Dharréville for his part.

The amendments aimed at removing this automatic registration were rejected, but the Assembly did not complete Monday evening the first article of the bill providing for this measure, which must apply from 2025 at the latest .

“Useless”, “superfluous”: all the oppositions have also stood up against the change of name of Pôle Emploi, which the Senate had already opposed. But their amendments were rejected by the presidential camp.

The bill provides that all those registered on the extended list of jobseekers would be required to fulfill new “duties” and the possibility of suspension of their allowance in the event of non-compliance. Measures which bristle on the left but which the right on the contrary wishes to toughen.

“We think that compared to the RSA there must be counterparts,” defended LR deputy Philippe Juvin.

The Senate, with a right-wing majority, had written in black and white the obligation to carry out "15 to 20 hours" of activities per week, against the advice of the government. But MEPs clarified in committee that this would only apply “if it proves adapted to the particular situation of the job seeker”.

“Our debates will allow us to continue to move forward,” assured Mr. Dussopt, insisting on the fact that the activities in question were not “free work” but “integration and training activities”.

Already a 49.3?

The RN, also hostile to the quantified obligation of activities, also tackled the "complexity" of the new employment governance.

The role of communities should animate part of the debates, with LR on the front line, deploring a "latent recentralization" of the public employment service.

Examination of the text, which is due to resume Tuesday afternoon, should spill over into next week.

Until then, the government could resort to a first 49.3 to pass without a vote the public finance programming law 2023-2027, on the agenda of the hemicycle on Wednesday and Thursday.

Rejected by the National Assembly a year ago at first reading, this text does not have the same importance as a budget. But France could be deprived of nearly 18 billion euros in European funds in 2023 and 2024 if it is not adopted, says the government.