Since 2025, a gradual increase, spread over four years at a rate of 3 points per year, has been scheduled for local authorities and hospitals in order to close the fund’s deficit. Last year, the Senate secured this four-year, rather than three-year, phasing of the twelve-point rate increase.
An amendment by Olivier Henno, general rapporteur of the Social Affairs Committee (Centrist and Independent Union), tabled at the last minute, was adopted. It caps the contribution rate to this fund at 40% next year.
The increase in labor costs for local authorities and hospitals is thus limited to €1.4 billion in the Senate version, compared with €1.8 billion in the original text. The Henno amendment reduces the expected yield by €400 million.
The government expressed its disagreement with the Senate’s proposals to reduce all or part of the increase in CNRACL contributions in 2027.
The additional cost of the contribution increase in 2027 is estimated at €1.8 billion in the government’s original text.
Numerous amendments from the right, the Les Indépendants group, the RDSE group and the three left-wing groups sought to cancel outright the increase planned for next year by freezing the rate at 37.65%.
The senator nonetheless failed to specify, before the return to the chamber, that Olivier Henno’s text would be called first for a vote. Its adoption caused the other amendments to fall.
This omission, in his words, infuriated all the senators who were ready to vote for a freeze on the increase, a “clear” signal from the Senate, rather than a merely reduced increase.
Patrick Kanner, president of the Socialist group, said that local authorities could not “constantly be the cash cows of the government’s budgetary negligence.”.
On Thursday, many senators judged that the situation had deteriorated for local authorities and that their financial position was no longer sustainable.
The CNRACL has been called upon for nearly €100 billion over the past fifty years, even though it was in surplus, to offset other schemes.
Earlier in the day, the Senate had already worsened the bill by €900 million by postponing the reform of general employer contribution relief.
The committee chairman also recalled that the fate of local authorities was being decided on two fronts: this social security budget and the state budget, which will be debated starting next week.
The fate of the Senate amendment will depend on the rest of the parliamentary shuttle and on the government’s intentions in providing France with a budget.