Programs 2022: all the way to the bottom
Article reserved for subscribers
Jean-Luc Mélenchon proposes that the State be the employer “of last resort” of the unemployed who would not find any employment in the private sector. An idea much debated on the left and opposed by his PCF competitor, Fabien Roussel.
These are two words in Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s project, but on their own, they constitute a whole program. The candidate of La France insoumise in the presidential election promises, if elected, to set up a “employment guarantee”. A proposal defined in these terms: “Any long-term unemployed person may be offered to be hired at least at minimum wage – upgraded – in an emergency sector.”
Far from being anecdotal, this measure, which the rebellious deputies – including Jean-Luc Mélenchon – already defended last year in a bill “establishing the guarantee of employment by the state employer as a last resort”, carries an ambitious idea. With it, indeed explained the reasons for this proposal, “labour ceases to be a commodity, because its existence and usefulness are no longer determined by the market”. In other words, employers would lose one of their main powers: that of offering mediocre wages and working conditions, because they know that the alternative faced by the most precarious job seekers is the following: accept them, or continue to survive with low allowances or even social minima that do not even allow them to reach the poverty line.
“Zero unemployment solution”
The idea is not entirely new, nor French: one of its most influential spokespersons is the…