Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced on Tuesday a reform on low wages, to “‘de-microcardiate’ France”, during his general policy declaration to the National Assembly. “We must evolve a system which has led us, for decades, to concentrate our aid, our exemptions, at the level of the minimum wage,” declared the head of government, assuring that “yes, I assume to say it, it France must be ‘de-microcardialized’. “As of the next finance bill (…) we will begin to reform this system,” he continued.
No more interest “in increasing an employee’s minimum wage”, estimates Attal
“Today, to increase the income of an employee on the minimum wage by 100 euros, the employer will have to pay 238 euros more. As for the employee, he will lose 39 euros of activity bonus, will see his CSG and his social contributions increase by 26 euros and could pay income tax,” detailed the Prime Minister.
“In short, let’s just say it, our system, the result of successive reforms steeped in good intentions over recent decades, has placed our economic world in a situation where there is almost no interest for anyone in increasing an employee’s minimum wage.” , continued Gabriel Attal, pleading that we must “change a system which has led us, for decades, to concentrate our aid, our exemptions” at the level of the minimum wage.
He also promised to act “resolutely” so that professional branches which continue to pay below the minimum wage “raise these remunerations”, excluding “no measure” to achieve rapid results. In France, the minimum wage is the only salary indexed to inflation. Branches with minimums below the minimum wage are regularly called to order. Even before the automatic increase in January bringing the minimum wage to 1,398 net, around thirty were affected in some 170 branches.