Current unemployment insurance rules extended until October 31

These rules were extended for the first time on July 1 for a month, after the announcement by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal of the suspension of the unemployment insurance reform on the evening of the first round of the legislative elections. This reform aimed at toughening access conditions and compensation rules was due to come into force at the beginning of next December.

Pending a new government, probably not for several weeks, the executive has once again extended "the regulatory provisions relating to the rules of compensation and contributions to the unemployment insurance system" to avoid a legal vacuum. And this until October 31 and no longer September 30 as initially envisaged, "on the technical advice of the Council of State", a union source told AFP last week.

It will be up to the next government to decide on the rules from November 1, while the New Popular Front, which came first in the legislative elections but without having an absolute majority in the National Assembly, has committed to repealing the reform promised by the Attal government.

The reform was to reduce from December 1 the maximum duration of compensation from 18 to 15 months for people aged under 57. You would also have to have worked eight months over the last 20 months to be compensated, compared to six months over the last 24 months currently.

The presidential camp had repeated its support for this reform in the name of full employment. In mid-June, President Emmanuel Macron called it “indispensable” and judged that the government was “right to take it on during the campaign”.

The unions have always been fiercely opposed to this reform which comes in addition to those of 2021 and 2023, fearing increased precariousness of the unemployed, particularly among young people and seniors.

In mid-June, in a joint press release, the eight union confederations (CFDT, CGT, FO, CFE-CGC, CFTC, UNSA, Solidaires and FSU) urged the government to "renounce the most useless, most unfair and the most violent ever seen.