Faced with a public finance situation that he considers “extremely worryingOn Monday morning, Antoine Armand, the French Minister of the Economy and Finance, called for an increase in the number of hours worked in order to finance our social protection model. “Every year, the French work less than their neighbors over the course of a year”.lamented the Minister on Europe 1/Cnews this Monday morning, before listing the consequences for the State’s public finances: “fewer contributions, less revenue and, obviously, fewer jobs, less work, less growth”.. “Yet it is this growth that creates wealth.”He points out that our social model is based solely on the fact that“there are people who work every day”. to finance it.

“What I’m saying today is that the quantity of hours worked in France is no longer sufficient to finance our social model, and that if we want to preserve it, we’ll have to work more. It’s an observation and a political conviction”.he said. The elected official even evoked the risk of “stall” of France “compared with the United States and Asia”. which “have growth rates 3 to 5 times higher”.. “We need to wake up and work collectively, and when deficits run, we are less strong and France is more vulnerable (…) we need to make this effort together.”he continued, convinced that the French are deeply attached to “our social system and “to our pay-as-you-go pensions.

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“Work should pay better

To achieve this, Antoine Armand called for more “justice and fairness. “We must help those who work and make work pay better”.he insisted, ready to defend all measures that would enable more French people to work. “This is the principle of pension reform”. but also “apprenticeship reform or “RSA reformhe explained. On this last subject, the idea, according to the Minister, is to“accompany Active Solidarity Income recipients in order to “make sure they find a job”.. And to assure: “I can’t tell you that we need to work more, and at the same time, not touch an allowance that no longer works”.

The Minister also defended his plan to lower the cost of labor. “I belong to the same political sensibility that has lowered the cost of labor (…) We want the difference between what it costs the employer and what the employee gets at the end of the month to be reduced.”says Antoine Armand, who hopes to “to reform and “lower the cost of labor”. However, saying he was listening to business leaders “particularly small and medium-sized businesses”.he said he was ready to “consider modulating this measure”. in order “reduce contribution increases, especially for low-wage earners”.. “If I put on the table a measure that costs money, I have to put opposite it a measure that creates activity, jobs and work in France, because we need it.”he assures us.

Finally, he assured us that the Minister for the Civil Service, Guillaume Kasbarian, was working “with great courage”.to bring compensation for sick leave in the public sector into line with that in the private sector. “Is aligning the public sector with the private sector anything other than a measure of justice?”he asked. But no way, in his opinion, “to let the imbalances of another age flourish in a world where there is a need to work more”.. Defending a “difficult budget that requires effort”he finally concluded that “return to below 5% (public deficit, editor’s note) in 2025”. was “not a minister’s whim”but “a necessity for our public accounts.