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Unédic Frontieres
Cross-border Unédic
(the eye at 20:00)
Every day thousands of French go to work in Switzerland, Luxembourg, Germany in search of very good wages. An Eldorado that is expensive for the social security fund. When border workers lose their jobs, Unédic goes to the till. Luxury unemployed held for years without France having a say.
For 15 years, Béatrice Falletti, mother, has crossed the border every morning for a position as an export coordinator in Geneva. The advantage of working in Switzerland, she says, is the pay. In Switzerland, she earns six thousand euros a month. That is three times more than in France. When she became unemployed two years ago, her benefits were calculated on the basis of her Swiss salary.
I had 3,500 euros in unemployment, whereas if I had worked in France, I would have barely had 2,000 euros in salary. This does not encourage working in France.
Béatrice Falletti, cross-border
at Eye of 20H
France is paying for this high unemployment. 24 years ago, in order to promote the free movement of labor, European states signed a regulation according to which an employee, when he finds a job on the other side of the border, contributes in the country where he works. But when he is dismissed, it is the country of residence that compensates him. As compensation, France collects only a very small part of the contributions.
Julien, 48 years old, has reached the end of his rights and has been looking for work for almost two years. Marketing manager in Geneva earned the equivalent of 15,000 euros gross per month. He doubled his salary. “We’re not used to this kind of sum,” he says. “It’s disconcerting at first.”
When his company fired him, his unemployment amounted to 6,795 a month at the expense of France, while he contributed in Switzerland. We have done the calculations: in 2 years, Unédic will have paid him 100,000 euros in compensation, while Switzerland will have reimbursed only 18,000 euros for the contributions Julien has paid.
Switzerland wins. However, it would be logical that it is Switzerland, the country where I contribute, that finances my unemployment
Unemployed border worker
at Eye of 20H
Unédic publishes shocking figures: The 77,000 unemployed border workers cost France 800 million euros every year.
800 million is huge and it happens every year. In total, we currently lack DKK 9 billion. It’s colossal, and why aren’t we taking care of it?
Jean-Eudes Tesson, director of Unédic
at Eye of 20H
Since 2016, France has tried to change the famous European regulation in 2019 so that the unemployment of border workers is paid by the country of work and not by the country where they work. stay. The text could never be adopted due to opposition from certain countries. This is confirmed by a French diplomat in Brussels.
The blockade is currently led by 3 member states, Belgium, the Netherlands and especially Luxembourg, where 50% of the workforce comes from other European countries. For them it is a colossal economic issue.
A French diplomat in Brussels
at Eye of 20H
What room for maneuver does France have when the European negotiations are at a standstill? Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet, minister of labor and employment, has a solution: force border workers to return to work as soon as possible.
After two rejections of reasonable job offers, you can be removed from France Travail. Now we will take as a reference salary, not in the country where the border workers worked, but in France
Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet, Minister of Labor and Employment
at Eye of 20H
As the negotiations begin on the unemployment insurance fund, the Minister of Labor and Employment is asking for 400 million in extra savings from the social partners. In comparison, it is half of what unemployment costs frontier workers each year.
AMONG OUR SOURCES:
https://www.unedic.org/publications/l-Indemnification-des-frontaliers-par-l-assurance-chomage-october-2024
https://www.frontalier.org/licencement.htm
