The government plans to launch in 2027 a reform of general social-contribution relief, a public employment subsidy of more than €70 billion a year. Employers' organizations fear having to bear the fallout at the same time as a rise in pay.
The stakes are political as much as budgetary. The executive is seeking to defuse tensions over purchasing power without reassuring businesses at the cost of a further worsening of the public accounts.
Two days before a new social mobilization, the government is continuing this balancing act. It wants to contain a major social crisis despite budgetary constraints that are already tight.
A rise in the minimum wage, an increase in the lowest salaries of public-sector employees, and assurances given to employers to ease payroll charges: several levers are being advanced in parallel.
Employers' organizations fear, however, that they may have to finance both wage increases and a rollback of social-contribution relief.
The minimum wage is not the only point of friction. Some sectoral minimums have fallen below the statutory minimum wage, which also requires negotiated pay scales in those sectors to be revised.
The draft budget for 2027 does not provide for increasing this relief in order to adapt it to the rise in the minimum wage. That lack of adjustment is concentrating employers' concern.
Businesses thus fear, once again, being placed at the center of the efforts required to balance the public finances.
The government must therefore pursue two objectives that are difficult to reconcile: stemming the social crisis and reassuring companies that are being called on to raise wages.
The reform of the relief measures is not presented as immediate. It is scheduled for 2027, even though these schemes already represent more than €70 billion a year in public support for employment.
For employers, the risk lies above all in the timing. They would have to negotiate pay increases while the scheme that supports low-skilled employment could be scaled back.