The Minister of Economy Bruno Le Maire warned on Tuesday that "hundreds of thousands" of people will lose their jobs in the coming months in France, saying he is open to "new solutions" such as the creation of "checks" targeted to help households in greatest difficulty.
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“We have before us a wave of bankruptcies, a wave of very violent employment problems. We are preparing for it and we want to face it by finding new solutions , ” assured the Minister of Economy on RTL this Tuesday evening. While the government must present Wednesday to the Council of Ministers the third part of the amending finance bill to deal with the crisis, Bruno Le Maire said that 45 billion euros would be put on the table to try to preserve as much as possible employment despite the coming severe recession.
"We are at just over 8% unemployment and I am talking to you about hundreds of thousands more unemployed, this is without doubt the most realistic prospect today" , he recognized. "We are going to be led to take original, singular measures" to "preserve employment at any cost in France" , he added. He mentioned "partial activity arrangements which make employees stay in the company rather than leave the company" . "We can also consider that employees move from one company to another," he said.
"Checks for the most disadvantaged"
While reiterating his hostility to an increase in taxation to finance the crisis, he declared himself "open to ideas of 'checks' which can support those who are really the most in trouble" . "We can consider checks, which can be green checks for people who are most in trouble to boost demand," he said. The minister also said he was interested in ideas put forward recently by three economists from a think-tank set up by the Elysée Palace who propose that the state subsidize the wages of workers in the most affected sectors. "It is an idea which is entirely conceivable" he judged.