Can non-French nationals employed in France apply for jobseeker’s allowance?

Hi there!

That situation’s a bummer… But don’t worry, chances are that you are eligible to unemployment benefits (it’s called assurance chômage). Since I don’t know your exact situation, I am assuming you are a French resident, working with a French work contract.

So the first question is: who can receive unemployment insurance?

In France, any resident going through unvoluntary unemployment can receive financial support from the government to compensate their temporary loss of income. The assurance chômage works much like traditional insurance: people contribute to the social system for some time and if certain conditions are met, they can receive a compensation. What are the conditions, you may ask. There are basically 4:

1. Being a French resident (that is, having a residence permit)
2. Suffering from an unvoluntary work interruption (read on for more details on this condition)
3. Have had a work record of at least 6 months (or 130 working days or 910 hours) over the last 24 months
4. Register at France Travail, aka Pôle Emploi **within 12 months after losing your job and demonstrate that you are actively looking for a job

The critical piece of information here is the involuntary work interruption bit. It means that you will not receive an allowance if you have resigned from your last job. You must have lost your job involuntarily (either being fired, reching the end of your temporary contract or though a mutual agreement process).

The next logical question, of course, is how much will you receive?

As always, the answer is… it depends. A recent bill (February 2023) passed by the French government has changed the rules of unemployment insurance quite a bit. The maximum period of unemployment went from 24 to 18 months, and the payment’s value can be increased or decreased depending on the unemployment rate.

As a rule of thumb, you receive around 60% of your average net salary over the last 24 months. But that’s only if you had been working continuously for the whole period before losing your job. If not, you need to calculate your Average Daily Salary (salaire journalier de référence) to find out what your payment is. It’s the total salaried income during the period the last 24 months, divided by the number of days between the first contract’s start date and the last contract’s end date (within the last 24 months). Your payment would be the highest result of any of these calculations:

• Daily payment = 40,4% of ADS + 12,95 €
• Daily payment = 57% of ADS

Although you have to make the calclulation on a daily basis, the payments are monthly.