Social conference: Lecornu raises the minimum wage to €1,502, the CGT dismisses it as crumbs and calls a strike on 17 November

The figure is out at Matignon, the Prime Minister's office. France's minimum wage, the Smic, will rise by 1.6% on 1 December, reaching €1,502 net per month. The announcement was made on Monday 9 November by Labour Minister Jean-Pierre Farandou, at the end of the social conference bringing unions and employers together around the Prime Minister.

The government thus clears the symbolic €1,500 mark. According to the minister, the Smic will have risen by 5.3% over the whole of 2026, or €75 net. He promised to convene a wage monitoring committee with the social partners in the coming days.

The government's package

Sébastien Lecornu defended a move he says is far from symbolic: he called it the second-largest rise in the minimum wage in twenty years. A bigger increase, he argued, would have destroyed many jobs. The head of government nonetheless acknowledged that the increase is not enough on its own and presented it as the start of a cycle of wage talks.

Other announcements:

• Value-sharing bonus: opened to companies with more than 50 employees. SME Minister Serge Papin spoke of 1.5 million additional beneficiaries, nearly 4 million in total.
• Overtime: the tax exemption ceiling raised from €7,500 to €10,000.
• Fuel bonus: the €1,000 ceiling, raised during the Hormuz crisis, would be kept next year, according to Economy Minister Roland Lescure.
• Payroll contribution relief: a reform of general contribution relief is being launched, with "flash" talks to deliver answers by December.

These measures will be introduced through government amendments to the 2027 finance bill. Against the backdrop of the presidential campaign, Lecornu said he had asked his ministers to be sincere in their answers.

Unions left wanting

The CGT was the harshest. Sophie Binet spoke of crumbs: in her view, the government announced a rise of around €23 in December, while the Smic was expected to go up by around €18 on 1 January anyway. Her union is calling for a new day of strikes and demonstrations on Tuesday 17 November.

For the CFDT, Marylise Léon judged the rise insufficient, but welcomed a first: some aid to businesses will be conditional on sector-level negotiations. Frédéric Souillot (FO) said the answers fell short of expectations, while noting that, for the first time, the dogma against discretionary boosts to the Smic had fallen.

On the employers' side, Medef president Patrick Martin told franceinfo it was the wrong answer to a real problem. He argued for jobs, investment and growth rather than wage rises that many companies, he said, cannot afford.

What happens next

The social week continues. The Prime Minister will meet public-sector unions on Friday. Their coalition is also calling a strike on 17 November to secure an immediate increase in the civil service pay index point, citing inflation of 3.4% in October. FO is demanding the same approach for public employees as in the private sector.