Clearly, the government has plenty of ideas about unemployment insurance. Since his arrival at Matignon, Gabriel Attal has constantly repeated that we must once again review compensation for job seekers – undoubtedly to reduce its duration. Bruno Le Maire has just made another proposal. “The State should regain control over [le régime] definitively »explained the Minister of the Economy, in an interview with World, dated Thursday March 7. His declaration, validated by the Elysée, offended the unions and employers, since it is they, theoretically, who manage the system, through the Unédic association. The position of the Bercy tenant is part of a test of strength, initiated during Emmanuel Macron’s first five-year term, during which the executive has continued to tighten its grip on the system of protection of the unemployed. And this process could go even further.
On paper, the governance of Unédic is joint, that is to say exercised jointly by employer and employee organizations. But, in reality, the State has been omnipresent for decades: its approval is essential for the entry into force of “conventions” negotiated by the social partners on the compensation rules. It is he, also, who guarantees the regime’s debt in the event of default – which has never happened, until now.
Since the “professional future” law of September 2018, the embrace of public authorities has increased. From now on, the government sets the objectives of negotiations between employers and unions in a “framing document”. In 2019, a new threshold was crossed after the failure of discussions between employer and employee organizations. The executive took control, and imposed changes from mid-2019 to early 2023, through a cascade of legislative and regulatory texts, which tightened the conditions under which an unemployed person is covered. The social partners only regained their prerogatives very recently. On November 10, 2023, they reached an agreement signed by all the employers’ movements and by the CFDT, the CFTC as well as Force Ouvrière (FO). There “convention” resulting from this compromise must now be approved by the Ministry of Labor, which has postponed its decision pending the result of the current negotiations on the employment of seniors.
“Shaky situation”
The hypothesis of 100% nationalization of Unédic does not arise out of nowhere. It already surfaced in a program book published by Mr. Macron a few months before he took office at the Elysée: Revolution (XO editions, 2016). In 2018, Muriel Pénicaud, then Minister of Labor, and her team pleaded for the management of Unédic to be entrusted to the State. “But the project was abandoned. Voices were raised to denounce the government’s verticality on the apprenticeship reform, which the regions disapproved of, and on the overhaul of the personal training account, carried out against the advice of the social partners.says Antoine Foucher, director of M’s officeme Pénicaud when she was minister.
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