After bitter and long debates, the National Assembly voted on Tuesday to continue the “Macron bonus”, an exceptional tax-free and desocialized bonus, on the second day of the examination of the bill on purchasing power. .
After more than six hours of discussions on the interest of bonuses, rather than the wage increases advocated by the left, the deputies adopted by 327 votes against 119 this article 1 of the summer’s flagship text in Parliament.
Thus employers will be able to pay until December 31, 2023 an exceptional bonus of a maximum amount of 3,000 euros (or 6,000 euros in the event of a profit-sharing agreement), exempt from income tax and social security contributions, for employees whose income is less than three times the value of the minimum wage.
This is the extension of the “Macron bonus”, introduced in 2019 during the yellow vests crisis, but with a tripling of the ceiling of this bonus.
According to the impact study carried out by the government, more than 15 million people benefited from this bonus between 2019 and 2022, for an average amount of the bonus amounting to 542 euros.
The left-wing Nupes alliance believes that “bonuses are a substitute for salaries” and that they depend on “the goodwill of the boss” – to which the majority replied that this vision of the company was “from another time”.
Several left-wing elected officials have also repeatedly denounced a “desire to circumvent the financing of Social Security and pension funds” via this bonus.
After an arrest by environmentalist Sandra Regol, LREM deputy Christine Le Nabour launched towards the left benches “we never said that we want to compromise with you”, immediately arousing a shower of indignant reactions from elected Nupes .
In addition to the government and the majority, the rebellious fought on another front, that of the RN deputies who sought to amend or widen the bonus, and not to oppose it. “There is a battle to be fought, for the increase in wages” and the RN behaves as a “good ally of the macronie”, launched in particular Adrien Quatennens.
And Marine Le Pen to consider that “the bonuses are not ideal, but for millions of French people, it is still an increase in their purchasing power”.
The bill also plans to perpetuate the bonus in the private sector, in the form of a “value sharing bonus”. This will only be exempt from social contributions, up to a limit of 3,000 euros (6,000 euros in the event of a profit-sharing agreement).
The maximum amount of the bonus and the maximum level of remuneration that can give access to it must be the subject of a company or group agreement or, failing that, a unilateral decision by the employer.
07/19/2022 19:35:57 – Paris (AFP) – © 2022 AFP