The Senate with a right-wing majority adopted Tuesday evening in first reading the bill paving the way for a possible modulation of unemployment insurance according to the economic situation, after having hardened it with a measure penalizing the repeated refusals of CDI to the from CDD. Deputies and senators will now try to agree on a common version in a joint committee. Scheduled over three days, the examination of this text carried by the Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt, was completed in a single day.
This text initially provides for extending the current unemployment insurance rules, resulting from a disputed reform of the first Macron five-year term and which expire on 1er november. It also triggers the possibility, by decree, of modulating unemployment insurance according to the job market, Emmanuel Macron’s campaign promise.
The current system “remains built to respond to a concept of mass unemployment, without being a sufficient incentive to return to work”said the minister, pointing out that “60% of companies have difficulty recruiting”. This modulation mechanism is currently the subject of consultation between the government and the social partners who “expected to take six to eight weeks to complete by the end of the year”, said Mr. Dussopt. The rapporteurs Frédérique Puissat (LR) and Olivier Henno (centrist) have enshrined the principle of modulation in full in the law, with the support of the minister.
Temporary workers ordered to accept a CDI
The Minister, on the other hand, was unfavorable to another measure introduced in committee, which provides that a jobseeker who has refused three CDI proposals at the end of a CDD cannot be entitled to unemployment insurance. . LR senators, including their leader Bruno Retailleau, have tried to tighten this provision even more in the hemicycle. An amendment providing for the deprivation of compensation on first refusal was rejected with extreme accuracy.
The Senate then adopted another LR amendment aimed at excluding temporary workers from unemployment benefit who do not accept a CDI offered on the position they occupy in the interim.
As for the provision assimilating “post abandonment” to a resignation, introduced in the Assembly by amendments of the presidential majority and the LRs, the senators specified the applicable procedure in order to ” to secure “.
The left is upwind against a text that “stigmatises job seekers and makes them look like profiteers”, according to Monique Lubin (PS). The PS and Ecologiste groups contributed their votes to a procedural motion by the majority Communist CRCE group aimed at rejecting the bill, a statement which was rejected. “The employees lost a lot tonight”estimated Cathy Apourceau-Poly (CRCE).
Request for consultation with the social partners
“In order to give back the hand to the social partners”, the senators rewrote the first article of the text which provides for the extension of the current rules of unemployment insurance. The deadline of December 31, 2023 has been moved to August 31. This period “should be used to initiate consultations aimed at changing the governance of unemployment insurance”said Ms. Puissat. “Without comprehensive and profound reform, jointism will have died”, warned the centrist Jean-Marie Vanlerenberghe. Opposed to the rewriting of the senators, the minister recalled for his part having committed to the opening of negotiations on governance.
The senatorial right has also changed the parameters of the bonus-malus, a device which aims to limit short contracts. In particular, the purposes of temporary assignments have been excluded from the scheme.
Another part of the bill provides for facilitating the validation of acquired experience (VAE). The senators opened it up even further and gave the green light to an experiment proposed by the government of “Reverse VAE”combining employment and training.