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Minimum incomes and benefits, Jean-Luc Mélenchon

Minimum income for under-25s: Autonomy guarantee at the poverty line for all young people in training

Direction of change: creation of a scheme, compared with current law.

The lever. Minimum income open to 18-25-year-olds, currently excluded from the RSA (minimum income) save for exceptions: creation, conditions, or support schemes. Direction rule: ↑ higher minimum or open to more young people.

« La troisième chose, c'est de garantir un revenu garanti pour tous les jeunes en formation. […] Cette garantie d'autonomie de jeunesse, pour atteindre le seuil de pauvreté, nous la comptabilisons à 9,5 milliards d'euros, sachant qu'en réalité, c'est le différentiel avec toutes les prestations que reçoivent aujourd'hui ces jeunes en formation et qui viendraient compléter pour atteindre ce seuil de pauvreté. »1

Translation by the editorsThe third thing is to guarantee a guaranteed income for all young people in training. […] This youth autonomy guarantee, to reach the poverty line, we estimate at 9.5 billion euros, bearing in mind that in reality it is the difference with all the benefits these young people in training receive today, which would be topped up to reach this poverty line.

Words of Éric Coquerel, MP, in charge of LFI's economic programme, Conférence de presse « Comment nous allons remettre de l’ordre dans les comptes publics » (vidéo), 14 October 2026. Words of Éric Coquerel, MP, in charge of LFI's economic programme, tasked by the candidate with carrying the programme: they commit the candidate.

Link to the candidacy: Alongside Jean-Luc Mélenchon, he presents the budget the candidate would have passed from 2027 through an amending finance act; he is responsible for his economic programme.

Encoding

No cost-schedule parameter for this position: see the costing for the reason.

Costing

Announced by the candidate

−€9.5bn

per year, new spending. Éric Coquerel, press conference of 14 October 2026 (around 0:38:12): « Cette garantie d'autonomie de jeunesse, pour atteindre le seuil de pauvreté, nous la comptabilisons à 9,5 milliards d'euros » [“This youth autonomy guarantee, to reach the poverty line, we count at 9.5 billion euros”]

Published costings

none

No external costing of this position recorded to date.

Our calculation

not costed

Top-up guarantee up to the poverty line for young people in education or training (students, apprentices…): neither this amount nor this population corresponds to the options of the cost schedule (income of €461 for all 18-24 year olds, or universal student autonomy allowance of about €1,000 gross), and no static costing has been read. The announced cost (€9.5bn) is cited, not counted.

Current law, sources and limits of the cost schedule

Current law. No general minimum social benefit before 25: the RSA (minimum income) is open to 18-24-year-olds only for single parents or young people with a sufficient period of work. The youth commitment contract (contrat d'engagement jeune) opens entitlement to an allowance of at most €566.17 per month for an adult who is independent for tax purposes or attached to a non-taxable household (€339.70 if each income share of the household falls in the first bracket of the scale; €226.48 for a minor), compared with €651.69 for the RSA of a single person (service-public, April 2026).

Horizon. Full year, €bn per year, at 2018 legislation and prices

Limits. IPP simulations from 2018 of a « revenu de base » [“basic income”] merging the RSA and the in-work benefit, paid automatically (100% take-up), with a minimum of €461 per month, lower than the current RSA of €651.69. Low: 34% non-take-up applied (DREES), i.e. about 7.8. High: uprating in proportion to the RSA since 2018, i.e. about 14 (calculations by the editors, without microsimulation). The IPP points out that detaching young people from their parents' tax household partly reduces the cost (lower family quotient), already counted. The programmes' « garanties d'autonomie » [“autonomy guarantees”] (at the poverty line, or at 50% of the net SMIC, for young people detached from the parental tax household) have no equivalent in the cost schedule: the options simulate an income of €461 for all 18-24 year-olds. No static costing of these schemes has been read.

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. Conférence de presse « Comment nous allons remettre de l’ordre dans les comptes publics » (vidéo), 14 October 2026. Words of Éric Coquerel, MP, in charge of LFI's economic programme. Words of Éric Coquerel, MP, in charge of LFI's economic programme, tasked by the candidate with carrying the programme: they commit the candidate. Read the source (Conférence de presse « Comment nous allons remettre de l’ordre dans les comptes publics » (vidéo)).

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