French border workers have reason to be relieved. These residents of France who work in Switzerland (as well as in Luxembourg, Germany and Belgium), were to see their compensation drastically reduced in the event of unemployment by applying another calculation coefficient. A proposal from employers and unions in France welcomed by the government, which asked them to find 400 million euros in savings per year.
This is because according to a study by the National Interprofessional Union for Employment in Industry and Commerce (Unédic), compensation for cross-border workers who have lost their jobs abroad would represent an additional cost of 800 million euros. per year for unemployment insurance. The reason: compensation is calculated on the basis of foreign salaries. But in Switzerland, for example, they are much higher.
While the National Assembly is preparing to censure the government of Michel Barnier this Wednesday evening, the said government seems to have abandoned this project. In a press release dated Tuesday included in the Geneva Tribunethe deputy for Moselle (Lorraine) Isabelle Rauch, (TDG), announces that this measure will not be applied.
A European system in question
“During an exchange with the Minister of Labor this morning, the latter confirmed to me that this avenue was definitively abandoned, because it would be tainted with unconstitutionality. Common sense therefore prevailed in refusing a discriminatory measure,” she says. In the press release, the parliamentarian adds that the Minister of Labor told her “that the future Polish presidency of the European Union wanted to tackle the problem. The idea being to reestablish responsibility for the risk of unemployment in the country where one works, not the one in which one resides.”
Associations defending border workers and local elected officials from neighboring France welcome the abandonment of a project deemed discriminatory in the Geneva daily. While admitting that the European system of unemployment compensation for cross-border workers deserves to be reviewed for French finances. The senator from Haute-Savoie Cyril Pellevat also tabled a proposed European resolution to this effect in mid-November.
