A controversial French plan to make the long-term unemployed do up to 20 hours of activities a week or lose their benefits has been dropped after President Macron was pilloried for it by presidential opponents on both his left and right — and faced hostility for the measure from within his own party as he began sliding down the polls.
“I’m not for slavery,” he had insisted to the television channel M6. “I am proposing work and training that opens the way to employment.” He added that the conditions would also not have applied to people with physical or mental health problems or addictions.
The president has been accused of inhumanely treating the two million people who receive the Active Solidarity Revenue (RSA), a benefit of €575 a month for those who do not receive unemployment and other benefits, and to whom the plan would have applied.
Macron announced the measure last week in a manifesto that includes plans to incite the French to work more as part of returning to full employment for the first time in nearly four decades.
He said that as a duty to society, all recipients of the benefit would have to spend between 15 and 20 hours a week “in work, training, job experience” or, he implied, they would lose the income.
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The move was hugely unpopular with left-wing candidates. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the radical leftist, who has risen to third position in the race for the April 10 first-round vote, deplored Macron’s scheme as “brutal” and “American-inspired”. Anne Hidalgo, candidate for the Socialist Party, said the pledge was proof that Macron “does not know the reality of France”. He should “get to know the social suffering in our country rather than stigmatising the poorest French with his far-right proposal”.
It has been denounced by right-wing candidates too, leaving the president isolated. Marine Le Pen, the anti-immigrant candidate who is in second place, accused the president of “guilt-tripping job seekers” with backwards-looking, unjust policies. Le Pen’s stance reflects her shift in recent years from stock right-wing themes towards a position on welfare close to that of the traditional left. Valérie Pécresse, candidate for the conservative Republicans party, accused Macron of stealing her own scheme for making RSA recipients perform community work if they were not in job training. Reducing dependence on France’s relatively lavish benefits has long been a goal of the mainstream centre right.
Qualms over the benefit reform in Macron’s La République en Marche party reflect concern that he is losing moderate left voters who are unhappy with schemes that smack of the “neo-liberal” social policies of the UK and the United States.
Macron is still the favourite to win the election on April 24, thanks in part to a poll boost from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. However, his support is down 2.5 percentage points at 27.4 per cent, according to an Elabe survey. Le Pen’s support has risen two points to 20 per cent, while Mélenchon has increased two points to 15 per cent.
