Unemployment benefits for cross-border workers finally spared

There will ultimately be no reduction in the calculation of unemployment insurance compensation for cross-border workers. This Tuesday, December 3, the senator from Meurthe-et-Moselle Véronique Guillotin (Radical Party, left) announced that the government of Michel Barnier, whose hours are numbered, will not apply the controversial measure.

According to the elected official, it was during a meeting on the ecosystem of cross-border workers that the Minister of Labor, Macronist Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet, announced this decision to parliamentarians involved in the subject, as Moselle MP Isabelle Rauch (Horizons). “The minister, having heard our arguments, announced today that this measure would not be applied,” explains the senator, in a press release.

Ms. Guillotin specifies that she denounced to the minister “the injustice of the plan to reduce unemployment benefits for [les] cross-border workers, some of whom would see their compensation halved, even though they have contributed to the country of employment.” And to welcome “the announcement of the withdrawal of this discriminatory measure”, in favor of negotiations aimed at the “signing of bilateral conventions that are fairer with regard to economic and social realities”.

MP Rauch welcomed the government decision in a press release published this Tuesday evening. “The minister confirmed to me that this avenue was definitively abandoned, because it would be tainted with unconstitutionality. Our analysis was therefore correct. Common sense therefore prevailed in refusing a discriminatory measure.”

As a reminder, the social partners found common ground on November 14 around a text providing for reforming unemployment insurance for cross-border workers residing in France. In order to achieve the huge savings demanded by Unédic, unions and employers had drafted a text proposing the introduction of a reducing coefficient, in view of the high salaries received in particular by salaried workers in Luxembourg or Switzerland. This text was in the hands of the social partners for approval before a hypothetical transmission to the government which would have had complete freedom to implement these recommendations.

32% impact on unemployment benefit according to the OGBL

According to our calculations, a coefficient of 0.59 could have been applied to French border workers in the Grand Duchy under these conditions. The OGBL, denouncing, according to its estimates, an impact of around 32% on unemployment compensation, had strongly denounced this project, calling vocally for an appeal to the European institutions. With the LCGB, the demonstration co-organized on November 22 in front of the Luxembourg Ministry of Finance served as a voice for trade union organizations to point out the consequences of this draft agreement.

“There would be a certain number of important prejudicial questions to ask, whether at the national level with the Council of State or with regard to European regulations with the CJEU,” declared Christian Simon-Lacroix, responsible French cross-border workers at the OGBL, interviewed byComma last November 19. The person concerned was referring to the introduction of “subjective distinctions which stigmatize certain French citizens” and, to protect against them, to possible appeals to the competent institutions.

Finally, let us specify that the abandonment of the amendment of November 14, 2024 to the memorandum of understanding of November 10, 2023 relating to the reform of unemployment insurance would only commit the Barnier government; and that nothing would prevent a new government team from following up on the memorandum of understanding of the social partners on the subject of unemployment compensation for cross-border workers.