It is a strong voice of the presidential majority but it does not go in the direction of the executive. The President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, expressed reservations on Tuesday on France Info on the reduction in the duration of unemployment compensation envisaged by the government to save money.
After the reforms of 2019, 2022 and 2023 with already a reduction in the duration of compensation, “it is not necessarily a good method to reform so quickly, again, a major point without being able to look at the effects produced by the previous reform,” said the Macronist leader.
Against unemployment, Braun-Pivet advocates global action
“Be careful of the stability of our legislation and our rules: we must not touch such important parameters so quickly without having evaluated the previous reform,” insisted Yaël Braun-Pivet, who readily places himself to the left of the policy pursued by the government of Gabriel Attal.
“Working on unemployment is much more global than simply saying that by reducing the duration of compensation, we are going to put people back on the job market,” she criticized, referring to a “ Unfortunately, the situation is much more complex.
The one who was elected to the perch in 2022, against the advice of Emmanuel Macron, has also renewed her request for an “exceptional tax” via an increase in taxes on superprofits or on super-dividends, to generate additional revenue while the public deficit reached 5.5% in 2023, a record. “If the effort is not shared, I am not comfortable because we cannot ask people who are unemployed, looking for work, to have their duration of compensation reduced if on the other hand, we do not have this justice which means that we look at the taxation of those who have benefited the most from a particular situation,” she summarized.
The government can do without Parliament
The President of the National Assembly also stressed that, if the government planned to go beyond the 10 billion euros in savings decided for 2024, it would be required to go through Parliament with a draft amending budget. “If the spending cuts were to be more significant, there would obviously have to be legislation presented to us,” she said.
The Prime Minister announced last week his desire to once again reform unemployment insurance by reducing by “several months” the duration of compensation for the unemployed, currently 18 months for those under 53, without going below 12 months. For such a reform on the parameters of unemployment insurance, however, the government does not need to go through Parliament. He must inform the social partners of a negotiation, via “a framing letter”, and in the event of failure of the negotiation, he can take control again by decree.