Return under pressure to the National Assembly. The summer break ends on Monday September 25 for the deputies, who return to the chamber to examine the “full employment” bill. But also a certain number of other texts for which the government could well decide to use article 49.3 in order to circumvent its lack of majority, starting this week.
After a stormy first year of legislature, the Palais-Bourbon already saw the first sparks last week in committees. And behind the scenes, elected officials from all sides say they expect an eventful second season. On the horizon, the upcoming battles over the budgetary texts in mid-October, and the string of 49.3s that the government is preparing to unleash to pass them without a vote, due to lack of an absolute majority.
The flammable immigration bill is also already on everyone’s minds, even if it does not arrive in the Assembly before 2024. It too could require recourse to the criticized constitutional weapon.
The ax, each appeal of which exposes the government to a motion of censure, could even be used as early as this week. For the 2023-2027 public finance programming law, on the menu Wednesday and Thursday of this inaugural extraordinary session. Rejected by MPs a year ago at first reading, this “steering” text certainly does not have the importance of a budget. But France could be deprived of billions of euros in European funds if it is not adopted, says the government.
In the meantime, from 4 p.m. on Monday, deputies will take up the “full employment” bill, carried by the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt and already adopted in July at first reading by the Senate. To achieve the emblematic objective of reducing the unemployment rate to 5% by 2027, this text proposes in particular to better coordinate the multiple actors of the public employment service.
With the keystone being a Pôle emploi renamed “France Travail” – even if the Senate wants to maintain the current name of the operator – and a network organization to improve support for job seekers.
The priority is to better target people furthest from employment, in particular RSA beneficiaries, for “more personalized and more intensive support”. These beneficiaries, like the young people monitored by local missions, would now be placed on the list of job seekers, all of whom would sign an “engagement contract”.
This contract would include new “duties”, which bristle on the left, but which LR wishes to toughen. The Senate, where the right is in the majority, had thus added in black and white the obligation to carry out “15 to 20 hours” of activities per week.
But the government insists on retaining some flexibility for people “long removed” from employment. In any case, “it is obviously not a question of free work or compulsory volunteering, but rather of integration and training activities to enable a return to employment,” insists Olivier Dussopt.
The left-wing deputies are also up in arms against the new “suspension-remobilization” sanction. It would make it possible to suspend the payment of an allowance to a person who does not respect their obligations, adding a level before removal. The RN, also hostile to the obligation of weekly activity, also tackles the “complexity” of the new governance planned for the network of employment actors, dooming it according to it “to immobility”.
The right intends to fight in the hemicycle to preserve the minimum 15 hours of activity. And even if they are in line with the spirit of the text, LR deputies are worried about the “financial cost of the reform”, between 2.2 and 2.7 billion euros over three years. The question of the role of communities should animate part of the debates, which will probably spill over into the ordinary session from October 2.
Until then, the political groups will have to decide a delicate question: should we call into question the distribution of key positions in the Assembly, where the two vice-presidencies of the RN continue to be debated, including in the majority? The leaders must discuss it on Tuesday, with President Yaël Braun-Pivet (Renaissance). The holder of Le Perchoir pleads for the status quo, but the request of a single group would be enough to provoke a new vote.
