Unemployment benefits: France will soon no longer have to compensate cross-border workers who have contributed abroad

This is a historic turning point that is emerging for unemployment compensation for cross-border workers. The Cypriot Presidency of the European Council announced on Wednesday that an agreement had been reached on the coordination of national social security systems.

According to the agreement reached with Parliament last week, approved this Wednesday 29 April by the Member States and which must be ratified before the summer, “active” workers (i.e. employed, self-employed and/or paying insurance contributions) in a Member State other than their country of residence for an uninterrupted period of 22 weeks will be entitled to unemployment benefits from the country where they were last employed – under the “lex loci laboris” principle. This is provided that the person meets the conditions of the country’s national legislation to be entitled to it.

However, at present, under a European regulation of 2004, 883, cross-border workers contribute in the State where they are employed and not to the unemployment insurance system of their country of residence, but once unemployed, it is their country of origin which compensates them according to its own rules.

And for France, the bill is far from trivial. Expenditure on unemployment compensation for cross-border workers represented, in 2024, 1.1 billion euros, or 11% more than in 2023. Neighboring countries – Luxembourg, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain as well as Switzerland, not a member of the EU but which also applies this regulation – are content to remit a small part of the contributions ― representing between 3 and 5 months of compensation ― to France. Or 270 million euros in 2024.

Thus, for Unédic, unemployment benefits for cross-border workers represent “a deficit of 860 million euros in 2024”, almost 10 billion euros accumulated since 2011.

We will have to come to an agreement with Switzerland

The agreement, for which the French Minister of Labor and Solidarity, Jean-Pierre Farandou, worked behind the scenes, must still be submitted to the European Parliament for a vote. And then? We will have to succeed in convincing Switzerland to apply the new regulation. Of the 860 million euros deficit recorded by Unédic in 2024 on this subject, compensation for unemployed French cross-border workers who worked in Switzerland represented 614 million euros.

Such a weight is explained by the number of beneficiaries compensated — 27,500 for Switzerland, ahead of Luxembourg (8,800), Germany (3,500), Belgium (3,400) and Spain (200). But also by the particularly high salaries in Switzerland leading to an average allowance received by these cross-border workers of 2,123 euros at the end of 2024, compared to barely more than 1,000 euros for the 2.7 million Unédic beneficiaries.