Every morning, Nicolas Beytout, the director of the newspaper "L'Opinion", analyzes the political news and gives us his point of view.

This Monday, he returns to the reform of unemployment insurance while the Minister of Labor, Elisabeth Borne, will meet the social partners for the last time on Tuesday.

Nicolas Beytout wonders if relaunching this reform now is a good choice.

While most economic and social reforms have been suspended since the start of the Covid epidemic, that on unemployment insurance should enter its last phase on Tuesday ...

"Yes at the time when Elisabeth Borne, the Minister of Labor, will present to the social partners the device as it has been chosen by the government. It will be an important phase in the course of the five-year term. Important, but also a little unreal ...

Why ?

Because nothing happened and nothing will go as planned.

Originally, in 2019 - it was another time, before the Covid -, the reform had been tied up, imposed on unions and employers who, each on their own, had been more or less dissatisfied.

The classic social game.

However, this reform, in the course of the five-year Macron term, was to be the logical continuation of the reform of labor law (with the ordinances of 2017-2018).

Logical, because once a little flexibility has been put into social law, the unemployed had to be encouraged to activate their return to work.

And chase away some abuses from the French system, for example the abusive use of fixed-term contracts (both on the side of certain business leaders and employees who played with unemployment benefit rules).

All of this was obviously brought to a halt by the Covid crisis and the explosion of unemployment.

Will this reform be relaunched as it is?

No it's impossible.

Let me give you two examples: can we ask the restaurant sector, which is almost economically dead, to give up, when it can reopen, the repetitive use of fixed-term contracts?

Can we tell a youngster stuck by the economic crisis and unable to find a job today that he will need more months of contributions to hope to receive unemployment compensation?

Obviously no.

So under these conditions, what will change?

The general philosophy of the text.

Most of the annoying provisions have been softened, rounded up, or abolished.

Hence the fundamental question: was it absolutely necessary, from now on, to resume this reform, even if it meant removing part of its meaning?

We did learn last week that the unemployment insurance deficit was nearly 18 billion in 2020 ...

Which creates a kind of urgency to find the path to balance, I agree.

But the reform as it will be presented tomorrow could save one to two billion per year.

It is therefore not up to par.

No, we can see that the government's priority objective is to tick the reform box.

The primary objective is political: should the reforms be resumed, even if it means carrying them out at a minimum?

Should we prefer immediate reform under duress to good reform later?

That's the whole subject that separates us from 2022. "