the Senate approves a discount in employer contribution reductions | EUROtoday

On Tuesday, November 19, the Senate accepted a really delicate measure to scale back reductions in employer contributions. It ought to make it attainable to unencumber three billion euros to the detriment of employers, or one billion lower than envisaged by the federal government in its draft Social Security funds.

After a number of hours of intense debate on this reform which bristles the employers and the Macronist camp, the higher home, dominated by the precise and the centrists, adopted an intermediate measure in comparison with the federal government’s proposal, which initially aimed for a return of 4 billion euros to finance Social Security.

The measure, already adopted in current days in committee, intends “preserve jobs” for salaries across the minimal wage, for which reductions in employer contributions would stay unchanged. In return, it proposes a larger effort on the very best salaries, notably for the yr 2026.

For salaries between 1 and 1.3 SMIC, the federal government initially needed to extend employer contributions by two proportion factors in 2025 and by two extra factors in 2026. But the measure – prone to destroy “hundreds of thousands of jobs” in keeping with Medef and 50,000 in keeping with the French Observatory of Economic Conditions (OFCE) – sparked an outcry even inside the authorities camp. The system had additionally been eliminated within the National Assembly, however the debates couldn’t be accomplished earlier than the textual content was transmitted to the Senate.

The Minister of Labor, Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet, judged “extremely interesting” the senatorial majority’s proposal for 2025, believing that it could make it attainable to “limit side effects or even neutralize them with regard to low wages”. She was however unfavorable to the Senate’s proposal for the yr 2026, judging the trouble too brutal for companies.

The remaining phrases of this flammable measure will however rely on upcoming discussions throughout a joint committee bringing collectively deputies and senators, scheduled for November 27 in keeping with a number of parliamentary sources, to achieve a compromise.

These exchanges promise to be very unsure, because of the standoff engaged by the Renaissance deputies with the federal government of Michel Barnier.

The authorities says it is able to scale back the efforts required of companies

The authorities has already let go in current days by saying it is able to halve the efforts required of companies, nevertheless it didn’t suggest any measure to this impact throughout the debates within the Senate.

The Senate didn’t go as far: “We have to break the dynamic” improve in reductions in expenses, which at present quantity to 80 billion euros, insisted the centrist common rapporteur Elisabeth Doineau. “We can’t continue like this. »

The few Renaissance parliamentarians elected to the Senate tried in vain to obtain the total removal of the measure: “Employment cannot be a budgetary adjustment variable”launched Senator Xavier Iacovelli. But solely round thirty elected officers adopted it, with fairly exceptional self-discipline within the ranks of the precise, the place quite a few deletion amendments have been lastly withdrawn within the identify of the “collective responsibility” advocated by the LR president of the social affairs committee, Philippe Mouiller. The left has not had extra success in its makes an attempt to extend the trouble required of companies.

The Senate additionally adopted, with the assist of the federal government, a discount within the reductions granted to companies on “free shares”that’s to say the actual fact for an employer to distribute free shares to workers or managers to retain them. The system is meant to usher in 400 to 500 million euros.