Background information

Since the reform on the reduction of working time of 2000 with the reduction of the working week from 39 hours to 35 hours, employees benefit from a reduction of working time in the form of additional rest days. In order to support employees' purchasing power, the government decided to allow employees to request payment for their unused rest days instead of obliging them to be used as rest days.

Content of measure

Employees, regardless of the size of their company and with the agreement of the employer, are now allowed to convert into salary days or half-days of reduced working time (RTT) not taken. This concerns RTT days acquired for periods after 1 January 2022 and up to 31 December 2025.

It concerns both days resulting from a working time reduction scheme (RTT) and rest days set up under an agreement on the organisation of working time over a period longer than a week.

If the employer accepts the employee's request for "monetisation", the days or half-days worked are increased by an amount at least equal to the rate of increase of the first hour of overtime applicable to the company, i.e. 25% in the absence of a collective agreement (that can reduce the rate). On the other hand, they do not included in the overtime quota.

The sums resulting from this "monetisation" are subject to the same tax and social security regime as overtime (exemption from income tax up to a ceiling of €7,500, exemption from employee old-age insurance contributions, flat-rate deduction of the employer's social security contributions depending on the size of the company).

Use of measure

As it is a new measure, there is no data available.

Target groups

Workers	Businesses	Citizens
Employees in standard employment Workers in non-standard forms of employment	Applies to all businesses	Does not apply to citizens

Actors and funding

Actors	Funding
National government Company / Companies Social insurance	Employer National funds

Social partners

Social partners' role in designing the measure and form of involvement:

	Trade unions	Employers' organisations
Role	Consulted	Consulted
Form	Direct consultation outside a formal body	Direct consultation outside a formal body

Social partners' role in the implementation, monitoring and assessment phase:

• No involvement
• Main level of involvement: Peak or cross-sectoral level

Involvement

No detailed information. As the representative social partners participate in the management bodies of the social security branches, they are necessarily consulted, even if the consultation is only a formality as the decision is already taken by government.

Views and reactions

About all the measures adopted to increase the purchase power of workers, all the trade union organisations, and in particular the five representative trade union confederations and the organisations representing young people, denounced, in a declaration of 21 July, the legislative measures announced by the government, including the generalisation of profit sharing.

They consider 'that wages are part of the sharing of wealth' and they 'are unanimous on the fact that the priority issue must be to increase wages, pensions, minimum social benefits and student grants'. However, the trade unions denounce the fact that 'a succession of one-off measures, mainly financed by the State, cannot constitute a sufficient package to respond to the emergency'. Moreover, the trade unions and youth organisations point out that 'these exemptions and reductions in contributions are undermining our collective social protection system'.

In particular, the trade unions are opposed to the conversion of RTT into remuneration for private sector employees. For them, it is above all a contradiction in terms. 'Employees will see the RTT as a potential source of income, and give up this extra time to rest,' said Vincent Gautheron, a member of the Confédération générale du travail / General Confederation of Labour executive committee, on 2 August. Moreover, 'many branches, such as the hotel and catering industry and personal assistance, do not have RTT, and will therefore not see an increase in their pay'. The trade unions are particularly concerned about a 'cut' in the 35-hour working week. 'Monetising the days of RTT amounts to inciting employees to "work more to earn more" to the detriment of the right to rest', which 'is nevertheless enshrined in the Constitution and' in European and international texts, adds the Confédération Générale du Travail-Force Ouvrière / General Confederation of Labour – Force ouvrière (FO). Another reproach, raised by FO: the tax and social exemption of the sums received when buying back these RTT. 'It is a net loss for the social security funds', regrets Michel Beaugas, FO Confederal Secretary. Interviewed by AFP, the president of the Confédération des Travailleurs Chrétiens / French Christian Workers’ Confederation (CFTC) Cyril Chabanier considers that 'the employees who want to buy back their RTT are not those who want to work more to earn more, but those who want above all a decent salary'.

On the employers' side, the measures presented by the government are better accepted (see Press article in Source box).

It has to be noticed that the government has issued a « package » of measure through 2 law adopted on 16 August. Instead of creating a factsheet of the package, the national correspondent has created FS for each relevant measure. But on their side, the trade unions have published a global and common position to the whole package and not measure by measure. This is why this comment about the social partners views has the same content. 

Sources

• 16 August 2022: Loi n° 2022-1157 du 16 août 2022 de finances rectificative pour 2022 (www.legifrance.gouv.fr)
• 31 August 2022: A la grand-messe du Medef, les patrons prêts à utiliser la boîte à outils de la loi «pouvoir d'achat» (www.usinenouvelle.com)