From free condoms to fuel vouchers, France rings in New Year with new rules

A boost to the minimum wage, fuel allowances to offset growing petrol prices, and free condoms for young people are among a raft of measures taking effect on Sunday, 1 January, 2023.

Minimum wage rise

As every year, the Smic minimum wage is revalued on January 1st to take into account inflation.

In 2023, the increase will come into effect, rising to €1,353 net per month, which represents an increase of €24 euros for a full-time, 35-hour week.

The gross hourly minimum wage will reach €11.27 instead of €11.07.

Within the French civil service, the salaries of the 410,000 lowest paid employees will also be increased by 1.8 percent from 1 January, 2023.

Meanwhile a bonus for hiring apprentices will be set at €6,000 in 2023 for both minors and adults under the age of 30.

The grant is currently at €5,000 for a minor and €8,000 for an adult.

No more iconic red postage stamp 

Since 1849, France's red postage stamp has ensured that mail is delivered within one day. From 1 January, the red stamp will disappear from envelopes.

It will be replaced "red e-letter" – you have to write an e-mail and send it from the laposte.fr website.

According to La Poste, the letter will then be printed at the post office closest to the addressee, then put in an envelope and delivered the next day by the postman.

It will also be possible to send this e-letter online from a post office with the help of a customer advisor or an automatic machine.

The measure has been justified by La Poste as the market for one-day delivery has essentially collapsed.

The new service will cost €1.49, compared with €1.43 for the red stamp.

Fuel allowance, carpooling bonus

The French state will stop paying 10 cents per litre of fuel on Sunday. Instead, an allowance will be paid to the least well-off workers who rely on their cars. 

The allowance will amount to €100 for the whole year and will be paid to individuals with "an annual tax reference income per unit of less than €14,700", according to the inland revenue website and represents around 10 million workers.

Applications must be made on the impots.gouv.fr website.

On the back of the fuel allowance, a further bonus of €100 is being made available to motorists who start carpooling in 2023 for long journeys as well as for everyday commutes. 

Meanwhile the ecological bonus for the purchase of an electric car is to increase to €7,000 euros for half of the most modest income households in France.

Public transport price hike

The monthly Navigo pass for public transport in the Ile-de-France region will rise from €75.20 to €84.10 – an increase of 12 percent.

In addition, a single ticket will cost €2.10 (+10.5 percent), tickets sold on buses will be €2.50 (up 25 percent), and the weekly transport pass rises to €30 (up 31.6 percent).

The announcement was made by Ile-de-France Mobilités at the beginning of December, following the release of a €200 million aid package by the French State, which is supposed to allow the regional transport authority to mitigate the increase in fares, due to inflation and the surge in energy prices.

Without state support, the monthly pass would have risen to €90 and a single ticket from €1.90 to €2.30.

Energy overhaul

Customers who are not equipped with a Linky electricity meter and who have not sent a counter reading to France's Enedis energy distribution company over the last 12 months will be charged a fee of €8.48 every two months.

The increase in regulated natural gas sales tariffs will be limited to 15 percent.

This tariff cap applies to residential customers (who consume less than 30 MWh/year) as well as to property owners in apartment buildings with an individual natural gas supply contract.

Meanwhile the MaPrimeRénov' scheme will no longer subsidise the purchase and installation of gas boilers, including those with very high energy efficiency.

To improve thermal efficiency of buildings, particularly poorly insulated homes, known as "thermal sieves" will be prohibited from being rented out under new contracts.

These are homes with an annual consumption of more than 450 kwh/m².

All G-rated homes fall within the scope of the new ban, except for some with electric heating systems.

Healthcare savings

Young people aged between 18 and 25 will be able to obtain free condoms from pharmacies.

President Emmanuel Macron announced in December that he was going to "get the teams to work on extending the measure to minors".

Meanwhile screening for newborns for rare but serious diseases, will be expanded to include seven new conditions, bringing the total to 13.

The new diseases include homocystinuria, leucinosis, tyrosinemia type 1, glutaric aciduria type 1, isovaleric aciduria, long-chain hydroxyacyl COA dehydrogenase deficiency and carnitine uptake deficiency.

People who are both deaf and blind, intellectually, cognitively or psychologically handicapped or affected by a neurodevelopmental disorder will now be able to benefit from personal assistance from the Prestation de compensation du handicap (PCH).

This will make it possible to employ a full-time assistant to help people with disabilities in carrying out day-to-day chores. 

To date, many people with certain disabilities were previously excluded from this type of assistance. 

Clamp down on phone canvassing 

Commercial "cold-calls" to mobile phones beginning with 06 or 07 will no longer be permitted.

They will have to turn to numbers beginning with 09, in accordance with a recent decision by Arcep (Autorité de régulation des communications électroniques, des postes et de la distribution de la presse).

The measure is also intended to remedy the shortage of mobile phone numbers being allocated over the coming years.

Ban on disposable fast food packaging

There will be no more throwing away your entire lunch tray at the end of your Happy Meal. From 1 January cutlery and food containers must be reusable in fast food outlets.

This measure was included in a law to combat waste and the circular economy, which was adopted by the French National Assembly in 2020. 

No more grinding of live chicks

In the poultry sector, producers must put an end to the routine extermination of male chicks by implementing measures that can determine the sex of embryos in an egg – thus sparing the animals from being disposed of alive through a grinding device. 

A waiver has, however, been allowed for male white hens (about 15% of France's national production) on the grounds that it is more difficult to determine their sex before hatching.

Meanwhile a reform of crop insurance plans will revise the way farmers are compensated for crop losses caused by climate change and encourages them to take out insurance.

Certain crimes won't be tried in court

Crimes punishable by 15 to 20 years' imprisonment – mainly rape – will now be tried in the first instance by criminal courts, which do not have juries.

To date, France's assize courts – the only courts with lay jurors and from which there is no appeal against sentences –  dealt with serious criminal offenses.

Meanwhile France's sentencing mechanism automatically offered prisoners – except terrorists – a reduction in their sentences, except in cases of bad behaviour.

From now on, it will be up to a sentence enforcement judge to grant reductions only to prisoners who have given "sufficient evidence of good conduct" or shown "serious efforts to reintegrate."