France Travail: unemployed people are forced to pay from… 5,000 to 100,000 euros after an error

Patakes at France Travail. Older job seekers would do well without it. The failure, which killed hundreds of them, was due to poor communication between former Pôle emploi employees and pension funds. This issue has just been raised by the mediator Jean-Louis Walter, responsible, as every year, for the report on the operator’s failures in support and compensation for the unemployed.

In its 2024 report, it explains that throughout France, regional mediators have received requests for mediation since the beginning of 2023 for “amounts demanded from unemployed people, typically reaching tens of thousands of euros.” The overpayments identified by France Travail “range from 5,000 to 100,000 euros or more.” How is this explained?

Seniors seeking work from age 62 can continue to receive benefits until age 67, when they do not have full rights to a full pension. Very often, a job applicant’s career track record is incomplete, leading to consultants recording the wrong forecast date. However, after pension fund recalculations, these individuals will finally be able to receive that full rate at age 65 or 66, which may call into question the departure dates originally recorded on file.

No retroactive effect when paying pensions

Initially, the pension insurance fund and/or regional funds (Carsat) must communicate the date from which France Travail must stop paying unemployment benefits to make way for the full old-age pension to be paid. What they don’t do on time. “This then leads to overpayments for months, even years of incorrectly paid benefits,” we read in the report. “The situation is all the more critical because pension funds do not provide for retroactive effect when paying pensions. “It is obvious that the person is not only obliged to repay the corresponding period, but also does not receive back what he should have received as a pension.

How to protect yourself from such a situation? You will need to request an official confirmation issued by the pension funds entitled “Compensated Unemployment: Career Regularization” which states your official date of departure. For those affected by this error, France Travail will contact you. Otherwise, do not hesitate to contact a mediator to request debt forgiveness.