Barthelemy Philippe / Photo credits: Emmanuel DUNAND / AFP 07:41, September 26, 2023

MPs have been working since Monday on the bill for full employment, adopted by the Senate this summer. A major reform for the government, which wants to reach the 5% unemployment rate mark by the end of the five-year term. Among the measures to achieve this: the issuance of the RSA in return for hours of integration activities carried out each week.

It is a studious week that begins at the National Assembly. Since Monday and until October 4, MPs are examining the bill for full employment, adopted by the Senate last July. The objective is to find the people furthest from employment, to bring the unemployment rate from 7 to 5% by 2027. Among the measures: the launch of the France Travail network, which will coordinate all public employment services, led by Pôle emploi.

But also the reform of the Active Solidarity Income (RSA), created in 2008 and paid by the departments. Currently, the country has 2 million beneficiaries, who receive 607 euros each month for one person. And, to bring as many people back to work, the government wants to put in place more counterparties to receive this income.

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Integration activities

Because currently, 350,000 recipients of the RSA have no follow-up, an anomaly that the text wants to correct. To achieve this, first, each beneficiary of the RSA will be automatically registered with France Travail, the new Pôle emploi, which was not the case until now.

But the real novelty will be that the beneficiary will have to undertake to carry out a minimum duration of weekly integration activities. "The RSA, no more than the RMI, its predecessor, is not a universal income in the sense that it would be unconditional. In the previous law, there were already obligations for integration actions. Simply, they were less precisely defined," explains Bertrand Martinot, a labour market expert at Institut Montaigne.

"Neither free work nor compulsory volunteering"

"There, the text refers to quite concrete actions by even setting a certain number of hours. So, we can hope that this law will be more implemented than the previous one, "he continues at the microphone of Europe 1.

Training, internship, coaching, associative commitment, or even passing the driving license... "It will not be free work or compulsory volunteering," promises the government, which specifies that there will be exceptions, especially for single mothers and people in poor health.