Insurance unemployment in France

General information

The French system of social protection against the involuntary deprivation of employment, created fine 1958, is shared since April 1984 between two modes:

the mode of insurance unemployment , financed by the contributions of the employers and the employees, compensates the people involuntarily private for employment who worked and cotisé. The allowances of insurance unemployment are calculated according to the former wages. The development of the regulation of this device and the management of its implementation are ensured by managements and labor, organizations and trade unions representative of the employers and employee (Paritarisme).

the mode of solidarity , completely financed by the budget of the State. This mode is a mode of assistance, created to take over mode of insurance whenever this last does not intervene or ceased intervening. It is a subsidiary mode compared to the mode of insurance. The allowances of solidarity, of a flat-rate amount, are allotted according to rules determined by the public authorities. This mode is managed, on behalf of the State, by the insurance unemployment.

In the French social landscape, the insurance unemployment , managed by the Unedic and implemented by the Assédic, occupies a very particular place, with the intersection of the spheres of the Social protection and Emploi.

Beside the modes of compensation of the losses of revenue which involve the disease, the industrial accidents and disability (Health insurance - CNAM), as well as the family loads (family benefits - CIF) and the withdrawal of the working life (old-age insurance - CNAV, Supplementary pension), the insurance unemployment is the mode of social protection against the pecuniary consequences of the involuntary loss of employment. It is registered, moreover, in a step of assistance to the return to employment by developing a partnership with the ANPE, the organism in charge of the reclassification of the applicants for work.

In France, the mode of insurance unemployment is managed jointly by three non-profit making companies: the Assédic, the Unedic and the Garp. The Assédic, distributed on the national territory, deal with the inscription and the compensation for the applicants for work and recover the employers' and wage contributions. The Unedic, which federates the whole of Assédic, is responsible for the good performance of the system, as well from the financial point of view as of the equal treatment of all the applicants for work. The Garp (Grouping of Assédic of the Paris region) ensures part of the missions of Assédic in Île-de-France.

The mode of insurance unemployment is financed in the private sector by the contributions of the employers and the employees. The money is transferred in the form of Allocation S, calculated according to the former wages, with paid which sufficiently cotisé and which is private of employment. The employees having voluntarily left their employment do not profit from the mode of insurance unemployment.

The L351-12 article of the Labor regulation makes obligation to the PUBLIC employers to make profit from the same allowances in the event of involuntary loss of employment as those of the private sector: their agents not-holders concerning the national State and its administrative public corporations, all their agents for the establishments and public agencies related to commercial industrial or, the territorial collectivities and their public corporations of some nature that it is. The load is allocated from there exclusively to the public employers (not of contributions of paid), those being able to pass a convention with the mode of insurance unemployment to ensure management of it. However the establishments and public agencies related to commercial industrial and can, on irrevocable option, to adhere to the mode of insurance unemployment of the private sector, with the same contributions employers and paid, which normally supposes a negotiation with the trade-union organizations of employees if this option is not before taken the effective creation of the establishment or organization with recruiting of employees. The administrative territorial collectivities and their public corporations can also adhere to the mode of insurance unemployment for their nontitular agents, but by taking responsibility for their the contributions employees except for the exceptional contribution of solidarity envisaged by law 82-329 of November 4th, 1982.

History of protection against unemployment since 1958

The Régime of insurance unemployment is created the December 31st 1958 for the employees of industry and the trade, under the impulse of the General De Gaulle, by managements and labor with the signature by employers (CNPF) and the trade unions (FO, CFTC and CGC) of interprofessional national Convention. The system of compensation is established in-outside framework of the Social security, against the wish of the CGT which initially refuses to take share with the negotiations.

Upon the departure, the signatories consider that the mode must exceed the simple compensation for the unemployed and support the fast recovery of an employment and the mobility of labor.

The ANPE is created in 1967 on proposal of the police chief in the plan François-Xavier Ortoli, to join a tool of orientation and looking for a job to the only compensation for the risk.

The big rise of unemployment in the Eighties involves a deficit that in 1982 the left refuses to fill by a rise of the contribution, from where a fall of the compensations and a proportionality between duration for contribution and compensation. For the unemployed said at the end of the rights, it is the assistance of the State which compensates Unedic since 1984 with the creation of the specific Allocation of solidarity, then de facto the Minimum wages of insertion created in 1988 by the government of Michel Rocard.

A new financial crisis of Unedic leads in 1992 to a lengthening of the duration of contribution (modified several times), the decreasing scale of the allowances and a reinforced control of the looking for a job. This decreasing scale will be abandoned only in 2001 when the MEDEF imposes the creation of the AVOIDS, but the too strong fall of the contributions negotiated on this occasion coupled to an increase of unemployment rate degrades the accounts again and leads to the signature of a new convention as of the following year which makes spend the duration of compensation for 30 to 23 month and hardens the access terms with the mode. Hardly half of the unemployed are compensated by Unedic!

The law of social cohesion (Borloo) of 2005 formally removes the monopoly of placement of ANPE and envisages the creation of 300 houses of employment gathering the various actors from the assistance to the unemployed. Then the new convention of 2006 again hardens the access terms with the mode of compensation, while founding the principle of the one-stop shopping and the monthly follow-up of the unemployed.

Institutional framework of the insurance unemployment

The institutions of the insurance unemployment are the Unedic, the Assédic and the Garp (convention of March 22nd, 2001).

The Unedic

Unedic has for principal function to take care, thanks to a homogeneous application of the regulation, with an equal treatment of all the private workers of employment. It has as a responsibility to ensure a sufficient homogeneity in the management of the organizations of insurance unemployment. For this reason, she assumes the following missions:

relationships to managements and labor and the public authorities at the national level;
development and diffusion of instructions and information memoranda, of printed and common form;
assistance in Assédic and follow-up of their activity;
nomination of the directors of these organizations;
fixing of the number and the territoriality of Assédic;
design and diffusion of a single functional analysis of the regulation preliminary to the development of the computer programs;
realization of statistical studies;
fixing of standards of management;
staff training of the organizations of the insurance unemployment.

The Assédic

Each of the 30 Assédic is charged, in its territorial spring, to pour with the unemployed of the allowances and to help them, by adapted actions, in their steps of reclassification. Assédic also ensure, with the local plan, the connections necessary with the services and the organizations in the field of application. They are charged, except in Area Ile-de-France, to recover the contributions and to affiliate the employers.

The Garp

Garp, for the four Assédic of the Area Ile-de-France:

counts and affiliates the companies concerned with the field of application of the mode of insurance unemployment,
proceeds to the operations of covering of the contributions which had by the employers.

It ensures also certain missions national vocation, in particular under the mode of the expatriates.

Management of the Insurance unemployment

The Insurance unemployment is managed in an equal way by the Syndicat S of paid and employers since creation of the institution. Every 3 years, the partners meet to negotiate a new convention whose principal stake is to fix the amount of the national insurance contributions reserved for the Insurance unemployment and the conditions of compensation for the unemployed for the three years to come. One speaks about convention Unedic, of the name of the institution which federates the system. That made, it returns to the State to ratify convention and to give him the force of law (or on the occasion, as in 2000, to ask certain modifications).

The financial results of the insurance unemployment are integrated into those of the State, the mode being regarded as belonging to its countable perimeter. Any necessary public loan to finance the mode of insurance unemployment must be the guarantee object of the State.

Conventions Unedic

The mode of insurance unemployment is created in 1958 through the Unedic and of the Assédic in a context of quasi full employment. During a score of years, it is not in prey with any financial problems.

At the end of the years 1970, the Unedic discovers the deficits with the increase in the Chômage.

In 2000, in a context of budget surplus (1,3 billion euros), managements and labor adopt the convention known as of the AVOIDS (Plane of assistance to the return to employment). Envisaging a financial surplus of 18 billion euros over the three following years according to the methods of preceding convention, the partners decide to redistribute this sum through a fall of the employer contributions and a financing of certain structures of insertion.

In 2002 takes place the business of recomputed, following the modification of the rights of compensation for certain categories of unemployed. Certain unemployed obtain the re-establishment of their rights for one period of a few months after having put forward the contract that they had signed with the Unedic.

A new convention of insurance unemployment was concluded on January 18th, 2006 and was approved by decree of the Minister for Labor on February 22nd, 2006. It should be renewed during its expiry on December 31st, 2008

Rights of the unemployed

The conditions of compensation for the unemployed are mainly:

minimum duration of contribution necessary to the perception of allowances;
duration of compensation;
the Decreasing scale or not of the allowances perceived during the period of compensation;
the amount of the allowances.

In 2005, the Insurance unemployment compensates approximately four applicants for work on ten. Those and those which do not profit from it in general did not cotisé sufficiently to claim there.

Evolution of the compensation for the unemployed

Since the development of unemployment at the end of the years 1970, the compensation for the unemployed became less and less generous. The maximum duration of compensation was 36 months for a smicard become unemployed of less than 50 years having cotisé at least 14 month in 1979. It passed in 30 months in 1984 and to 23 in 2001. explain the newspaper Le Monde

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