Professional integration: Parliament makes a training program permanent

The text by Macronist senator Nadège Havet, supported by the government, was approved by 64 votes against 30 in the Assembly, after its adoption in the Senate in the same terms last summer.

By enshrining it in the labor code, it makes permanent a temporary scheme launched in 2018 which has benefited more than 35.000 people: the experimental professionalization contract.

This specific contract is derived from the standard professionalization contract - the "pro contract" which is aimed at the least qualified personnel (young people, job seekers, beneficiaries of minimum social benefits).

According to its defenders, it offers more "flexibility" by allowing the employee to acquire only one or more skill blocks, without requiring them to complete a training course in its entirety.

Since its launch in 2018, the experiment "has largely proven itself", and "we now have enough perspective to say that it has proven conclusive", said Labour Minister Jean-Pierre Farandou in the chamber.

An evaluation report showed that "those who benefited from an experimental professional training contract find it easier to get a job at the end of the course. 80% of them find a job within six months, 55% on a permanent contract," he explained.

Left-wing MPs strongly opposed the measure, with the LFI, ecologist and communist groups voting against the text.

The left-wing MP Hadrien Clouet criticized a system that only allows one to learn "half a CAP", "a third of a BTS", "a quarter of a professional license", which is not "valuable" in terms of salary.

PCF MP Nicolas Sansu denounced it as "an experiment designed specifically to meet the employer's needs" and "to have a more malleable and readily available workforce, rather than considering a long-term career path for the worker."