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Unemployment, Jean-Luc Mélenchon

Benefit amount and tapering: Repeal Macron's calculation; benefit based on the latest wages

Direction of change: increase, compared with current law.

The lever. Calculation of unemployment benefit from past wages, ceiling, and any reduction in the amount over the months. Direction rule: ↑ higher or less tapered benefit.

« Revenir sur les réformes Macron en abrogeant l’éligibilité et les méthodes de calcul du montant et de la durée de l’allocation pour indemniser les chômeurs en fonction de leurs derniers salaires grâce à une assurance calculée à partir du premier jour de travail »1

Translation by the editorsReverse the Macron reforms by repealing the eligibility rules and the methods for calculating the amount and duration of the benefit, so as to compensate the unemployed according to their latest wages through insurance calculated from the first day of work

Encoding

Position linked to an option of the cost schedule, with no parameter to set: see the costing.

Costing

Announced by the candidate

−€3bn

per year, cost to the public accounts. Éric Coquerel, press conference of 14 October 2026 (around 0:47:34): « Et nous comptons abroger toutes les réformes sur les droits à l'assurance chômage, c'est-à-dire 3 milliards d'euros. » [“And we intend to repeal all the reforms on unemployment insurance entitlements, that is 3 billion euros.”]

Published costings

none

No external costing of this position recorded to date.

Our calculation

−€2.3bn

per year for the public accounts, new spending.

The calculation

  • Repeal of the whole 2019-2021 reform (access, calculation, tapering): Option costed by the source: a cost of €2.26bn per year.

Assumption by the editors. The repeal of « l'éligibilité et des méthodes de calcul du montant » [“eligibility and the methods of calculating the amount”] is read as that of the entire 2019-2021 reform (access, calculation, degressivity). Overlap with “Unemployment, max. benefit duration” examined: estimated common base zero, both amounts are added. The 2023 reform was costed on the law resulting from the 2019-2021 reform, and Unédic itself adds the two together (€2.2bn for 2019-2021, €4.5bn for 2023, €6.7bn together in steady state, February 2023, table A).

Figure announced by the candidate: no gap calculated: the announcement covers a different scope or a different year.

Current law, sources and limits of the cost schedule

Current law. Since the 2019-2021 reform (Decree No. 2019-797 as amended), the benefit is calculated on a daily reference wage established over 24 months, including periods not worked. 30% tapering after 6 months for those with high previous earnings, with older workers aged 57 and over exempted since the 2024 agreement.

Horizon. Full year, €bn per year, in 2021 euros (steady state 2023-2024)

Limits. Unédic estimate of March 2021 (steady state), not updated: €1bn for the calculation of the reference wage, €0.8bn for the qualifying-employment condition, €0.46bn for degressivity, €2.26bn in total. No sourced coefficient for « +1 point de taux de remplacement » [“+1 point of replacement rate”]. The OFCE table for the 2024 legislative elections gives €4bn for the « annulation de la réforme » [“cancellation of the reform”], without stating the author or the scope. Unédic presents the reduced spending of the 2021 and 2023 reforms « d'allocations chômage (et financement des caisses de retraite complémentaire) » [“in unemployment benefits (and funding of supplementary pension funds)”] (February 2023, table A): the share paid to supplementary pensions, a flow between general government bodies, is not isolated for the 2019-2021 reform and could not be removed. Repealing 2019-2021 overlaps with the abolition of countercyclicality (duration lever) and the access lever: declared overlaps.

How to read these amounts. These are static costs and revenues, with no feedback effect, over a full year: nothing on growth, employment or the revenue that economic activity would gain or lose. A higher net cost does not on its own make a worse policy, nor net savings a better one: each programme rests on an economic model (demand-led stimulus, lower compulsory levies, consolidation of the public accounts…) that the cost schedule does not settle. GDP itself measures a volume of activity, not well-being or the usefulness of what is produced. Economic models and feedback effects.

This lever in the method · Costing for Jean-Luc Mélenchon

  1. L’Avenir en commun (édition 2025), p. 36. Open the document at this page.

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