Full reverse. In a letter sent on Saturday to the social partners, the Minister of Labor, Jean-Pierre Farandou, leaves unions and employers’ organizations until the end of January to negotiate an agreement on unemployment insurance allowing 400 million euros in savings per year.
This is much less than the 2 to 2.5 billion per year included in the framework letter sent last August by former Prime Minister François Bayrou. The social partners also had until November 15 to reach an agreement. In theory, because the discussions never really started and, on the eve of the deadline, the five representative trade union organizations (CFDT, CGT, FO, CFE-CGC and CFTC) and two employers’ organizations (CPME and U2P) had asked the government to withdraw this financial framework, committing to opening an inter-professional negotiation on short contracts and conventional terminations.
In his response, de facto not addressed to Medef, Jean-Pierre Farandou therefore gives the green light while bordering on the discussions. “In the degraded context of public finances, it would be desirable that this unemployment insurance negotiation, relating in particular to the management of conventional terminations, could generate a saving of at least 400 million euros per year in a full year over the remaining duration of the agreement (until 2029), with effects from 2026,” he wrote in the letter that we were able to consult.
Ultimatum until the end of January
Some 515,000 departures (+ 17% since 2019) were negotiated between the employer and the employee in 2024 for a bill of 9.2 billion euros. A report from Unédic, unveiled at the beginning of November by our newspaper, mentioned several avenues for development of the system on which the government could rely. Which planned to reduce employee benefits in this area.
The Minister of Labor also explains that the previous framework letter will be formally withdrawn when a timetable is established to reach an agreement by the end of January. An announcement of appeasement which comes a few days before the first meeting on the conference on work and pensions scheduled for December 5.
“If this negotiation does not succeed within these deadlines, given the degraded context of public finances, the government will be forced to take its responsibilities again,” warns Jean-Pierre Farandou in his letter. The countdown is on.