The Union of Local Businesses (U2P), which represents craftsmen and liberal professions, welcomed on Wednesday the final adoption by Parliament of the bill creating a single status for the self-employed.
This text, which provides for a single status for merchants, craftsmen or liberal professionals, makes their personal property unseizable in the event of bankruptcy. It also provides for an extended cessation of activity allowance, which will no longer be limited to cases of liquidation or receivership, while the self-employed are not entitled to unemployment.
Recalling that to date only the principal residence of the entrepreneur is protected in the event of bankruptcy, the U2P welcomes in a press release that the text puts an end to the sacrosanct principle of uniqueness of the personal and professional heritage of self-employed workers and establishes that everything that is not useful to the exercise of the profession will henceforth be elusive.
But the employers’ organization believes that the banks, made cautious by the lack of guarantees offered by the self-employed because of this new protection, could be tempted to refuse to grant them loans.
The U2P also wants the government to prepare a market agreement with the French Banking Federation in order to formalize the banks’ commitment to respect the spirit of the reform, according to the press release.
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The Minister of SMEs Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne assured Tuesday that the government will be vigilant on the implementation of the new legislation by the banks.
The rapporteur of the text in the Senate Christophe-Andr Frassa for his part warned that it was to be expected that the banks would continue to require special security on certain property of the entrepreneur, including his personal property.
Without waiting for an agreement with the FBF, the U2P proposes to work with guarantee companies such as Siagi for crafts or Interfimo for the liberal professions in order to support the self-employed as best as possible, the press release reports.