Suspension of benefits for 1 to 4 months: here are the new sanctions targeting the unemployed

It was only a matter of time. Six months after the law for full employment came into force across the country, its "sanctions" component was finally formalized this Saturday, May 31, through a decree published in the Official Journal. Job seekers will therefore not escape what is considered the most harmful provision of this reform.

Since last January, this law has imposed automatic registration in the France Travail files for all 1.2 million recipients of the active solidarity income (RSA) , as well as for the 1.1 million 16-25 year-olds monitored by local missions , as well as the 220,000 people with disabilities supported by Cap emploi. All are required to comply with 15 hours of weekly activity , via a commitment contract, under penalty of reprisals, detailed in this decree.

It helps to clear up some of the confusion surrounding this new sanctions regime, which the executive is coyly calling the "suspension-remobilization system." In concrete terms, failure to comply with the "engagement contract," particularly by failing to work fifteen hours a week, will cost job seekers "the suspension of at least 30%" of their benefits for a period of one to two months, which could extend to four months in the event of "repeated breaches," the decree states.

This would be "a new logic of proportionate, gradual, non-automatic and reversible sanctions" , assures the Ministry of Labour in a press release, according to which this decree would preserve "the essential guarantees for the rights of individuals" , in particular "RSA beneficiaries who have a family to support" for whom "a 50% cap on the part of their income that can be suspended or removed" would be provided.

While for the Minister of Labour, Catherine Vautrin, the introduction of this new sanctions regime would be essential in order to "encourage remobilisation for a rapid return to employment" , associations, unions and the Defender of Rights do not see it that way and continue to unanimously denounce an infantilising and stigmatising measure, which breaks with the fundamental principles at the heart of the French social protection system.

The National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (CNCDH) reaffirmed this in a statement made public on 19 December 2024, in which it protested against a measure deemed to be "an attack on human rights" . Namely: the right to "adequate means of existence" provided for in the preamble to the 1946 Constitution and the right to "freely chosen social and professional integration" included in the European Social Charter. The institution also points to "an unacceptable relegation of human rights behind economic priorities in the development and implementation of social policies" .

The National Council for Policies to Combat Poverty and Social Exclusion (CNLE), a body reporting to the Prime Minister and made up of the main institutional and associative actors involved in these issues, also spoke out in May, sharply criticizing this new sanctions regime, which it believes could "severely impact the lives of RSA recipients and accentuate inequalities in treatment."