for Jean Viard, “if we reached a European agreement on working hours, on unemployment, we would take a big step towards living in the same society”

How to reduce unemployment without targeting the unemployed? In an interview with “La Tribune Dimanche”, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal presents his new unemployment insurance reform, planned to be implemented quickly next December. Decryption with sociologist Jean Viard.

Gabriel Attal, the Prime Minister therefore presented in “La Tribune Dimanche” his new reform of unemployment insurance, which should be implemented quickly next December. And it is supposed to tighten the conditions of access to unemployment insurance. You will have to work more over a shorter period of time to benefit from it. We will also be compensated for less time over time.

franceinfo: Observation from the unions, we are once again targeting the unemployed, making them scapegoats. Response from Gabriel Attal: No, we are aiming for full employment…

Jean Viard: Everyone is in their own lane, that’s what’s a little sad, is that deep down, we’re in a situation of change. We had a long period where unemployment was terrible. We are managing to reduce it, not just in France, but in France particularly, since we are around è to 7.5 unemployment. We have never been this low in 40 years. So there are lots of reasons: the evolution of the market, the fact that learning has taken on enormous importance. There are almost 800,000 apprentices in this country, there were 350,000. However, they are considered employees. So we put the money on young people for apprenticeships.

I am not an arbiter of public policies, but it is clear that in France, employees often work less, for example, than in Germany, but the self-employed work much more. What ultimately makes France rebalance is that the 13 or 14% of self-employed people work on average 40% more than employees, the self-employed are traders, craftsmen, self-employed people, farmers, etc. That is to say that in fact, we have excess work among the self-employed, in comparison, and less working time than in other countries.

Which means that in France, we always say that we work less there. This is true for the working hours of employees, but it is false overall, and overall, we are even ahead of Germany in working hours compared to the number of active workers. So this is to say that there are all these elements that are changing and it is true that there is a greater demand for employees, we are looking for employees in many sectors.

And then in times when we find employment, do we agree to do a job other than the one we learned? Because it’s complicated at the moment, there are lots of jobs that will disappear with artificial intelligence, and then there is the question of age, there is also a bonus of €1,000 I think, when you hire someone over 57 for a year, to basically compensate for the previous salary.

There are specific measures in fact for seniors and the oldest unemployed…

The government’s objective is to say that where there is a gold mine, the number of assets is increasing. We are 73.5% French of working age, between 14 and 64 years old, and if we managed to increase it like the Germans, where they are 80%, and after all, why not, it’s still not slavery, that would give a completely balanced society. And that’s all that fuels the debate.

A study by Unedic shows that it is the unemployed already in the most precarious situation, the young people, who have fixed-term contracts, who will suffer the most from this reform?

Yes, there is also an increase in the search for fixed-term contracts among young people, because their willingness to commit is not the same when they are under 30 years old. So there are lots of elements that change. I think that the job market is changing, we are in a period where we need to free up cash for the climate war, and at the same time we need people to have a job, even modest ones, it is better than the unemployment.

How do we put all this together? The social partners did not reach an agreement. The government continues its policy. For the moment, we have created more than 2 million jobs, almost 2.5 million since the arrival of President Macron, but with methods that are sometimes a little brutal.

A final word: reform of unemployment insurance in a labor market which is partly European, we are in the middle of a European election, is this also a dimension of the subject?

I think that the basic debate is there. We are in the European elections. What is European labor policy? There is no reason for the rules to be different since it is a single market for the products that circulate, there are nearly 500,000 cross-border workers, I think that in this debate, we would arrive at a European agreement on the time of work, unemployment, etc. We would have taken a big step to live in the same society.