Unemployment, Fabien Roussel
Benefit amount and tapering: Repeal the unemployment insurance reforms (2019-2021 calculation)
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.
« une augmentation générale des salaires, leur indexation sur les prix, l’abrogation des réformes de l’assurance-chômage et la construction d’une sécurité d’emploi et de formation »1Translation by the editorsa general increase in wages, their indexation to prices, the repeal of the unemployment insurance reforms and the construction of an employment and training security system
PCF, « Chômage à 8,3 % : l'argent public doit servir l'emploi, pas les licenciements » (communiqué), 9 August 2026. Position taken from a document of the candidate’s party or movement, not from a presidential programme.
No programme released. Positions taken from public statements, words of associates or documents of the candidate’s party, each dated and sourced; last recorded on 18 October 2026.
Encoding
Position linked to an option of the cost schedule, with no parameter to set: see the costing.
Costing
Announced by the candidate
not announced
The cited source does not cost this measure.
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. Partial costing. Reading adopted, the same as for Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Marine Tondelier: the repeal of the unemployment insurance reforms applies to the whole 2019-2021 reform (eligibility, calculation, degressivity). The other reforms targeted are not costed here: the 2023 countercyclical modulation is costed under the “duration” lever; the 2026 amendment on negotiated terminations (ruptures conventionnelles) is not. 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).
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.
- Unédic, « Impact de l'évolution des règles d'assurance chômage au 1er juillet 2021 » (estimations de mars 2021), page 7 du PDF, 2021-04: « Calcul du SJR et de la durée avec un plancher à 57,14 % 210 940 1 000 […] Dégressivité appliquée au 9e mois à partir du 1er juillet 2021, puis au 7e mois pour les pertes d’emploi à partir du 1er janvier 2022 (majorant) ou au-delà de 2022 (minorant) 0 [250 – 260]** 460 […] Ensemble 210 [1 190 - 1 930 ]** 2 260 »
- OFCE, Programmes législatives 2024, NFP, 2024: « Annulation de la réforme : 4 Md€ ; Destruction de 90 000 emplois (selon le gouvernement) »
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.
- PCF, « Chômage à 8,3 % : l'argent public doit servir l'emploi, pas les licenciements » (communiqué), 9 August 2026. Position taken from a document of the candidate’s party or movement, not from a presidential programme. Read the source (PCF, « Chômage à 8,3 % : l'argent public doit servir l'emploi, pas les licenciements » (communiqué)).
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