The Senate wants to leave its mark on the law on unemployment insurance

Adopted on October 12 by the deputies at first reading, this text initiates a new reform of unemployment insurance aimed at changing the rules according to the state of the labor market.

"Favorable" to the principle of this modulation that the government intends to establish by decree, after consultation with the social partners, the rapporteurs Frédérique Puissat (LR) and Olivier Henno (centrist) wished to register it clearly in the law.

A new article provides in the labor code the possibility of modulating unemployment insurance according to short-term indicators, charge to the unemployment insurance agreement concluded between the social partners to set the parameters.

The government sees modulation as a first brick to achieve the objective of full employment in 2027, i.e. an unemployment rate of around 5% against 7,4% currently. A consultation between the government and the social partners on this modulation began on October 17 and is due to end on November 21.

The rapporteurs have also provided that a jobseeker who has refused three CDI proposals at the end of a CDD during the last twelve months cannot be entitled to unemployment insurance.

They believe that the proposed wording "allows to clearly target the characterized refusal of an employee to engage in a stable job".

In the National Assembly, amendments providing for the same measure had been tabled by Horizons and MoDem deputies, but withdrawn by their authors, at the request of the government, which wanted to rework such a provision.

It will in any case be debated in the hemicycle, the left accusing the senatorial majority of "toughening up" the government's text. Conversely, LR senators want to go further by reducing the number to a single refused CDI.

As for the provision equating "abandonment of post" to a resignation, introduced in the Assembly by amendments from the presidential majority and the LRs, the senators specified the applicable procedure in order to "secure" it.

They believe that "it is not desirable for an employee dismissed after abandonment of post to have a more favorable situation in terms of unemployment insurance than an employee who resigns and who is not compensated".

"Guidance letter"

It is especially on the first article of the text, which provides initially to extend the current rules of unemployment insurance, that the senatorial majority marked its difference with the government in committee.

"We want to give back the hand to the social partners", explained to AFP Ms. Puissat. “We maintain the course of joint action which corresponds to the DNA of the Senate, in the spirit of the Larcher law” of 2007, specified Mr. Henno.

Article 1 of the bill authorizes the government to take by decree in Council of State the measures for the application of the unemployment insurance scheme until December 31, 2023. In committee, the senators reduced this limit to August 31 2023.

This period "should be used to initiate consultations aimed at changing the governance of unemployment insurance", indicated Ms. Puissat.

An amendment repeals the provisions of the labor code providing since 2018 for the procedure for negotiating an agreement on the basis of a "framework letter", in order to return to a "guidance letter" which "does not preempt the conclusion ".

Another point rectified by the senators in committee: the parameters of the bonus-malus, a device which is intended to limit short-contracts. In particular, they excluded from the system the purposes of temporary assignments.

Another part of the bill plans to extend the validation of acquired experience (VAE) to “close caregivers and family caregivers” to facilitate their access to old age professions. The senators want to open it "to any activity related to certification, in order to give new impetus to this system".