AA / Tunisia / Salim Boussaïd
French Prime Minister Gabriel Atal on Wednesday announced unemployment insurance reform for next summer.
Atal was speaking during a televised interview with TF1 channel on Wednesday at 8pm (19:00 UTC).
“Unemployment insurance reform will take place this year,” the French Prime Minister said, specifying that this reform should be presented next summer and implemented from the fall of this year.
“Today you can get unemployment benefits for up to 18 months, but after a year we see far fewer people going back to work. One option would be to reduce this duration of compensation. But I don’t think it should go below 12 months,” he explained.
The reform also envisages tightening the availability of unemployment compensation.
“The amount of time you had to work to qualify for unemployment is currently 6 months over the past two years. It can be said that we have to work harder to get this right,” explained the French Prime Minister.
In addition, Attali advocated an overhaul of the “contribution reduction system” to encourage more increases for low-wage workers.
“We have a system that means nobody really has much interest in raising minimum wage workers anymore.” It is very expensive for the employer, the employee with the minimum wage earns less in the end,” explained the Prime Minister.
“We must have a reduction in contributions, which gives more incentives to employees to increase their wages,” he argued, announcing a mission assigned to “two economists who will prepare proposals on this subject in June.”
When asked about the 4-day week, Gabriel Atal made no objection on the subject. He said he favors more flexibility in working hours while maintaining the number of hours per week.
“Letting workers come in earlier and leave later” to ensure the same number of hours in 4 days was an option that should be considered, according to Attal.
The job interview with the French prime minister comes in a difficult economic context in France, which was particularly marked by a public deficit of 5.5% in 2023, but which should be reduced to 3% by 2027. The French government, which still wants to meet its full employment targets, President Macron’s campaign promise.
Source: AA
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