Unemployment insurance: despite the suspension of the text, Bruno Le Maire calls for “continuing the reform”

A month. On Sunday evening, in light of the results of the first round of early legislative elections, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced that he was temporarily suspending the unemployment insurance reform, which aims in particular to tighten the conditions for access to benefits. This reform is denounced as much by the far right as by the left-wing alliance and the unions, for different reasons. In mid-June, President Emmanuel Macron described it as “essential” and considered that the government was “right to take responsibility for it during the campaign”, but said he was open to the “modalities”.

In order to avoid a legal vacuum, the current rules being valid only until this Sunday, a “joining decree” was published exceptionally on Monday morning to extend the conditions in force “until July 31”. “The date: June 30 is replaced by the date: July 31”, confirms the text published this Monday morning in the Official Journal.

This decision angered Bruno Le Maire. This Monday morning on France Inter, the Minister of Economy and Finance said he was “very cautious about the guarantees that can be given, about the positions of circumstance, about the accommodations, about the calculations” in an electoral context when “we must continue the reform”. “I am not going to change my conviction in 24 hours, because I would have to manage to convince so-and-so”, he insisted, invoking his “conviction as a minister” in office at Bercy.

The reform, as prepared by the current majority, must reduce the maximum duration of compensation from 18 to 15 months for people under 57 from December 1st. It would also be necessary to have worked eight months out of the last 20 months to be compensated, compared to six months out of the last 24 months currently. The presidential camp had repeated that it supported this reform in the name of full employment.