Dissociation of personal and professional assets, easing of the unemployment insurance scheme... Parliament is preparing to definitively adopt on Tuesday February 8 a bill offering a simpler and more protective framework for the more than three million self-employed workers.
Read alsoThe self-employed status has boosted self-employment
The text on which deputies and senators have agreed in a mixed parity commission must be voted on one last time successively by the Senate and the National Assembly.
It creates a unique status for the self-employed - craftsmen, merchants, liberal professionals...- which makes a distinction between the professional assets of the individual entrepreneur and their personal assets.
“All the elements which are not useful for the professional exercise”
will be elusive in the event of failure, indicated the Minister of Small and Medium Enterprises Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, whereas today only the principal residence is protected.
This measure, which derogates from the legal principle of the uniqueness of heritage, was a long-standing request from these workers, whose activity by nature faces significant risks, brutally brought to light by the health crisis.
It will enter into force three months after the promulgation of the law.
The bill is
"the cornerstone"
of the plan for self-employed workers announced by Emmanuel Macron on September 16, according to the minister.
It is articulated with a budgetary component voted at the end of the year, to facilitate the sale of companies, too few in France when an entrepreneur retires, thanks to exemptions from taxation of capital gains .
Read alsoSelf-employed: increasing workforce, declining income
Another flagship measure of the bill: the conditions of access to the allowance for self-employed workers (ATI), deemed too restrictive, are extended to any total and definitive cessation of activity which is not economically viable.
"To estimate if the activity is not viable, we will see if there is a drop in income of at least 30%
," said Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne.
Unlike employees, the self-employed cannot indeed receive unemployment.
Since 2019, they can benefit from the ATI, a lump sum of 800 euros per month for a maximum period of six months, but only in the event of liquidation or recovery.
Make social rights converge
The reform also plans to double the tax credit for the training of managers of companies with less than ten employees and aims to reduce by 30% the price of optional AT/MP insurance (accidents at work/occupational diseases) .
A study published on February 1 shows that the self-employed would like to obtain an alignment of their social rights, which they consider weak, with those of employees.
According to a consultation carried out in the fall by OpinionWay with 1,149 independent entrepreneurs supported by the Association for the Right to Economic Initiative (Adie), 93% of them consider it
"urgent"
to converge their social rights with those employees.
59% want unemployment rights as a priority and 49% want above all better coverage of occupational risks.
With identical incomes, their basic pension is broadly similar to that of employees, but the supplementary pension of the self-employed, when they can afford it, is very often lower than that of employees.
Read alsoMore than one in two self-employed is now self-employed
“The subject is gaining momentum with the Covid-19 pandemic,
confirmed Jean-Guilhem Darré, secretary general of the Syndicate of Independents.
Social protection is rather weak.
The rights of the self-employed are indexed to their resources, which fell in 2020 and 2021. What worries most is retirement.
At the end of January, the government announced additional financial aid for certain categories of self-employed workers affected by the health crisis.
The bill, initially carried by Alain Griset, had been approved at first reading in October by the Senate.
The deputies had voted for it in turn on January 10, by a very large majority, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne having replaced Alain Griset on the government bench, after his resignation.
Alain Griset, who before becoming a minister had exercised the profession of taxi driver for more than 30 years, will answer on May 25 before the Lille criminal court for "breach of trust" at the expense of the National Confederation of Craftsmen of trades and services (Cnams) in the North.