France/Luxembourg: Unemployment of French cross-border workers: “It is clear that there is a problem”

Negotiations on unemployment insurance in France, between employers and unions, are still stumbling over compensation for seniors and cross-border workers, but the negotiators hoped on Friday to reach an agreement next week. Negotiations between social partners must be concluded on November 14 – and if necessary the 15th – and the new unemployment insurance agreement will replace the current compensation rules from January 1.

The government asked the social partners to find an additional 400 million euros compared to the agreement concluded in November 2023, signed by the CFDT, FO and the CFTC as well as by all employers’ organizations, but which had not not been approved by the Attal government due to lack of agreement on seniors.

Friday’s negotiation session allows us to “envisage a working meeting which could be positive next week,” said Medef negotiator Hubert Mongon. Before the last negotiating session on Thursday, the employers must transmit a new text proposal to the unions on Tuesday. The 2023 agreement should be taken up in full, supplemented by provisions for cross-border workers. The latter currently receive compensation calculated on the basis of their salaries received abroad, which are generally higher than in France, particularly for those who worked in Switzerland and Luxembourg.

This would involve applying a coefficient to take into account the difference in standard of living between the recipient’s country of work and France. Reviewing compensation for cross-border workers, which the government also wants, is “a central axis of our proposals, without which a signature could not be initiated on the part of the three employers’ organizations (Medef, CPME, U2P)”, explained Hubert Mongon. But the measure is not accepted by all the unions. “We are putting our finger on something dangerous by applying coefficients,” reacted FO negotiator Michel Beaugas, saying he was “attached to Republican equality.”

Frédéric Belouze (CFTC) also fears “opening Pandora’s box” and asks that such a measure, if adopted, only have an “exceptional character”. CFDT negotiator Olivier Guivarch, for his part, considers that making savings on compensation for cross-border workers constitutes “the least worst response” to the government’s desire to find savings. If this subject “poses difficulties”, it is nevertheless “possible to put it in a memorandum of understanding”, he estimated.

The CFE-CGC accepts the principle of the coefficient: “It was we who proposed it,” explains Jean-François Foucard, who judges that “for cross-border workers, it is clear that there is a problem.” The CGT, on the other hand, says “no to lowering the rights” of cross-border workers who “have contributed or paid taxes”, in a joint press release with the Luxembourgish OGBL and Swiss unions UNIA and SGB USS, considering that it is not up to them to pay for the insufficient compensation of Unédic by Switzerland or Luxembourg.