Unemployment insurance: the government will respond to the three demands of the social partners, says Farandou

The government is ready to respond to the demands made by social partners to negotiate on mutually agreed terminations and short-term contracts, the Minister of Labour assured on Tuesday, January 20, while insisting on a necessary willingness to "converge".

The three employers' organizations and the CFDT, FO and CFTC have set three conditions to continue negotiations on the negotiated terminations desired by the government, which has set the objective of saving 400 million euros per year for unemployment insurance.

They asked him to withdraw the framework letter sent by former Prime Minister François Bayrou in August inviting social partners to negotiate once again on unemployment insurance, with the aim of generating two billion euros in savings per year from 2026.

They also requested, in order to complete the latest reform of unemployment insurance, the publication of an implementing decree reducing from six to five months the minimum period of affiliation for first-time entrants to France Travail, as well as the approval of a bonus-malus amendment on short-term contracts established in July.

"We will sort this out, there will be a response to the letter," explained Jean-Pierre Farandou during a meeting with journalists organized by the Association of Social Information Journalists (Ajis), assuring that he was "still in the phase of trust" with the social partners.

The minister stressed that Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, to whom the three employers' organizations and three trade unions (CFDT, FO, CFTC) had addressed their requests, had had "a lot to do" lately.

However, "the phase of confidence will stop at some point if we find that it has not had any effect," warned Mr. Farandou.

"The intention to remove the general framework letter is still there, we haven't changed our minds, but what matters is the intellectual honesty of everyone involved," the determination of the partners "to really want to converge," he said, warning that otherwise, he would take "responsibility."

As part of the negotiations, employers expressed a desire to save not 400 million euros per year but one billion and not to limit themselves to the subject of negotiated terminations but to discuss much more broadly the conditions of compensation for job seekers.