Social Security Budget: Increase in contributions on low wages removed in committee in the Assembly

This vote, however, has no real impact, since the deputies, who will examine the PLFSS in a new reading from Monday, will start from the Senate's copy.

On Monday evening, shortly before midnight, while the ranks of the Social Affairs Committee were thinned, the socialist Jérôme Guedj had succeeded in having amendments adopted resulting in reducing these exemptions by 3 billion in 2025, and 4,5 billion in 2026.

The general rapporteur for the social security budget, Thibault Bazin (LR), had proposed an amendment returning to the compromise found in the joint committee in November, namely an effort requested from companies of 1,6 billion for 2025 as for 2026 - an objective defended on Monday by the Minister of Labor Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet.

In the autumn, Michel Barnier's government proposed an effort of four billion euros, reduced to three billion by the Senate.

"What I defended (...) was not leftist madness, it came back to what came out of the Senate," Mr. Guedj argued on Tuesday.

But the government coalition and the RN joined forces to remove the article.

MP Stéphanie Rist recalled that her group was against any "increase in the cost of labour", and had already opposed in the CMP the compromise on which it landed, at 1,6 billion.

The deputies also rejected in a more consensual manner another article, added by the senators, proposing to introduce seven hours of unpaid work. Prime Minister François Bayrou himself rejected this idea on Monday evening, believing that "work should not be free".