Deputies and senators find a compromise on the unemployment insurance bill

The compromise found on Wednesday in the joint committee will have to be voted on again in both chambers, on November 15 in the Assembly and on November 17 in the Senate, to be definitively adopted.

This text allows the government to decide until the end of 2023 on unemployment insurance compensation rules by decree instead of the social partners.

First, it extends the current unemployment insurance rules, resulting from a disputed reform of Macron's first five-year term and which expired on November 1. A decree to this effect was taken in advance at the end of October.

The bill also triggers the possibility, by decree, of modulating certain unemployment insurance rules (such as the duration of compensation or the conditions of entitlement) according to the situation of the labor market, promise of campaign of Emmanuel Macron.

Although the unions are unanimously opposed to it, consultation is underway with the social partners until the end of November, the government wishing to apply this modulation at the start of 2023.

"The agreement reached by the deputies and senators is good news for our objective of full employment. We are continuing consultations with the social partners for new unemployment insurance rules more adapted to the economic situation", welcomed on Twitter the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt.

To reach this agreement, the majority had to accept a toughening of the text of the LR senators to which the minister was initially opposed.

From now on, two refusals in one year of a CDI after a CDD or an interim contract on the same post, the same place with the same remuneration will lead to the loss of unemployment compensation. It will be up to the employer to inform Pôle emploi.

"Gasworks Risk"

"The government did not want it, but we did not bend," the rapporteur for the text in the Senate Frédérique Puissat (LR) told AFP.

In a recent interview with Ouest France, Olivier Dussopt nevertheless saw "risks" in it.

"The first is to encourage job seekers not to accept short contracts or temporary assignments for fear of ultimately being locked into a job they would have taken for food reasons (...) The second reason is that an employee who has gone to the end of the contractual commitment he has signed, does not have to be sanctioned", he had judged.

The rapporteur for the Assembly Marc Ferracci (Renaissance) stressed having "accepted the measure for the sake of compromise", but thinks that there is a risk of "gas factory".

"Are employers going to get involved in the process (to point out the refusals of CDIs, editor's note)?" Asked the deputy, who has "a big doubt about the feasibility".

In addition, the control agents at Pôle emploi will have to check whether the refused CDI falls within the "reasonable job offers" defined by the job seeker with his adviser (geographical search area, salary and expected working time, etc. ...). In the event of two refusals of reasonable offers, the allocation can already be withdrawn.

“But this rule is not applied”, underlines Eric Chevée of the CPME (small and medium-sized enterprises), skeptical “about the appropriation of this new device by Pôle emploi”.

On the union side, the CGT is "totally opposed to this sanction". "Even Dussopt said that this calls into question the freedom to accept a contract or not," union negotiator Denis Gravouil told AFP.

"We can't stop the fact that companies are chaining fixed-term contracts, there can't be a double standard," added his CFE-CGC counterpart Jean-François Foucard for whom this measure "is of the communication".