The lockdown on public movement in France, aimed at containing the Covid-19 epidemic, was this week extended to May 11th, after which the government announced an increase in its emergency aid package in response to the crisis, more than doubling the 45 billion euros earmarked in March to 110 billion euros.
While 8 billion euros are destined for the healthcare sector, both for equipment and one-off pay bonuses for frontline staff, the funds are largely destined to helping businesses and notably the payment of “partial unemployment” in lieu of wages for laid-off employees. Further down the line are extra payments for very low-income families and the extension until the end of the lockdown of unemployment benefits for those about to come off the system.
“We have never had such a massive, protecting package in France,” said labour minister Muriel Pénicaud, in an interview with LCI news channel on Thursday, when she detailed that around 9 million inactive employees from temporarily closed-down businesses in France were receiving “partial unemployment” benefits in place of their wages. “That means that their salaries are paid for by the state,” she insisted, adding that for the “more than 700,000 companies hit” by the crisis “today the problem is sorted out”.
But for a section of the jobless in France, the perilous situation they now find themselves plunged into is far from resolved. Under a reform introduced last November that tightened access to the unemployment benefits system, tens of thousands of people without employment are unentitled to benefits.
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Previously, a jobless person could claim – or reclaim – benefits if they had worked four months over a 28-month period. As of November 1st, those conditions were changed to the requirement of having worked six months (or 910 hours) in a period of 24 months. While that period was extended to up to 27 months in a decree published on April 15th, a section of jobseekers have simply fallen off the books.
“Postponing this reform would give us some oxygen, a bit of air,” said Sonia, 56, who fell short of the new conditions for receiving benefits by just four days, and who has no hope since the lockdown of completing them. “Because now, we’re going to die in our corner.”
She came back to France a year ago, settling in the southern town of Cannes, after a period living abroad. She subsequently worked in a series of temporary jobs, initially in the events management business before finding a job, through a temporary employment agency, with a company providing services in human resources. She was hired on a three-month contract in January. That ended on March 31st, and she had been hopeful of seeing it transformed into a permanent work contract, but with the lockdown introduced that same month, she recounts, “Our clients all closed down their shutters”.
Sonia was paid her March salary, “without any commission because activity had slowed down”, and which amounted to the legal minimum wage. “My temping agency will no doubt close down,” she said. “I could go back to jobbing in the events business but nothing will happen before mid-July,” she added, referring to the government’s ban on public gatherings before then. She now faces receiving no income for an indefinite period. “It’s the beginning of a vicious cycle. I’ll accumulate debts, and when activity returns, they’ll have to be paid back. The path is going to be very, very long.”
For Sonia, missing those four days of work necessary to be able to claim unemployment benefits is a cruel blow. She has contacted her local public job centre office, Pôle emploi, on several occasions, hoping for the news that the November reform has been temporarily postponed. “During my last call, the lady who answered was almost contemptuous,” she recounted. “She said that the November reform will never be repealed, and that I should simply find a job. But she proposed nothing to me. I know the job market around the Cannes basin. There’s nothing for me at the moment.”
“I’m shocked to hear the government say that it hasn’t forgotten anyone. That’s false. People like me are left at the side of the road. I find this reform of the unemployment benefits system unjust and cruel. But I accepted it. Today it’s making our situation worse.”
While Sonia and others in the same position are facing a personal financial meltdown, the November reforms have been eased for some. As well as the extension of benefits granted for those who were nearing an end to their entitlement at the moment of the lockdown, the stricter terms of the benefits paid to those previously in higher-income jobs has also been sidelined. Under the reforms, the benefits of high-income earners were to be gradually lowered over the first six months of signing on for benefits to a level of 30% of their lost income, but which has now been suspended for the length of the lockdown.
“I can tell you that we’re going to put up a fight,” said Sébastien, 52, who was a head waiter with a catering business in the Paris region, employed from one event to another. Now jobless, he lost his rights to unemployment benefits in January, and to re-enter the system he should have met the criterium of 910-hours of work over 24 months by the end of March. “The winter was complicated with the strikes over the pension reforms,” he said, referring to the numerous union-led strikes in December and January, notably in the public transport sector. “I struggled to accumulate 832 hours of work. I need 910 to re-charge [entitlement to benefits]. Before the reform, 130 hours sufficed. We were just entering the season when there’s lots of work. I should have re-charged my rights but without using them immediately. Now, everything is cancelled., up until the end of June inclusively. The congresses, marriages, everything has collapsed. We’re dead.”
Sébastien’s last monthly income, in March, was 700 euros, and is most certainly his last for some time to come. “I have no right to anything,” he said. “I don’t qualify for any part of the government’s emergency measures, and we are numerous in that position.” He said that the Covid-19 crisis has sparked a movement of opposition among his profession to the reform of the unemployment benefits system, where in normal times there is little mobilisation. “Now, that’s woken us all up. We’re in the process of federating together to fight this reform; head waiters, cooks, security guards. We already number several thousand and it’s just the beginning.”
Abrogation of the reform is also called for by the national CGT trades union, one of the largest and most militant in France. On the Twitter account of its branch representing the unemployed, it regularly publishes first-hand accounts of those in insecure professional and social conditions, and who make up the forgotten amid the national emergency measures. Meanwhile, Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure last month wrote to President Emmanuel Macron calling on him to reconsider the November reform and open benefits rights to those who have worked at least two months out of 24 instead of the six now required.
In its study of the consequences of the reform, published before the current health crisis, the body that oversees the administration of unemployment rights, Unédic, calculated that around 200,000 people would be adversely affected by the new restrictions introduced on November 1st.
“We provide responses to all human situations,” claimed labour minister Muriel Pénicaud during her April 16th interview with LCI, adding that, “one must not add to the anguish of the health crisis [with] the anguish of the end of the month”. But for the likes of Sonia and Sébastien, the anguish is the very real threat of falling into dire poverty.
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- The original French version of this article can be found here.
English version, with some added reporting, by Graham Tearse