A new tightening of the screws for the Personal Training Account (CPF) is expected. Labor Minister Jean-Pierre Farandou intends to make every purchase of training conditional on confirmation by the employer, Apec or France Travail.
Could this reform be too big? As the government refines its 2027 budget, the personal training fund (CPF) account could be further weakened in the context of rebuilding the state’s public finances. In an interview with Les Échos on July 16, Labor Minister Jean-Pierre Farandou admitted his intention to tighten the conditions for the use of the CPF, although this has long been popular to facilitate professional development and retraining of workers.
“We want to change the ‘P’ of CPF from personal to professional. Everyone will always be able to build their own professional career, but now we want to make sure that each training course matches the professional development desired by the employee and is realistic in terms of the reality of the labor market,” said the former SNCF CEO.
In other words, every training purchase will be subject to the approval of the current employee by the employer, the Association for the Employment of Executives (Apec) or even France Travail.
CFDT is against it
Unsurprisingly, unions don’t like this idea. In a press release issued on Tuesday, July 21, CFDT expresses its disagreement. “Subjecting the use of the CPF to pre-screening by the employer or the Council for Professional Development (CEP) would call into question not only the balance created by the social partners under the ANI (national interprofessional agreements, editor’s note) 2013 and 2018, but also the philosophy of the law of September 5, 2018, which made every active person the first active person in his professional career.”
This law was aimed at eliminating all intermediaries and returning control to active people to implement their professional project, be it, for example, advanced training for the purpose of changing positions in the company or professional retraining. Speaking to AFP, CGT confederal secretary Denis Gravouille believes that the individual right to training is a “great achievement” that should allow the worker to “choose training that is not just what his employer wants him to undergo to adapt to the workplace.”
The manager can count on the support of employers
The government’s project also makes some Macronists scream, such as Sylvain Maillard. “The funeral of the CPF is a choice that challenges the freedom of every worker to choose his professional future. I am surprised that this shocking statement by Jean-Pierre Farandou was made in a newspaper and not in front of the deputies of his majority. Two months before the budget discussions, this is awkward to say the least,” he condemns in a post published on the social network X.
Set cookies
On the other hand, the executive branch enjoys the support of employers. “We invested a huge amount of money in financing fictitious reforms,” an employer representative explains to BFM Business. As highlighted in the Senate report published on July 9, employers are the main source of funding for the CPF: their contribution, collected by France Competences, amounted to almost 11 billion euros in 2025. The CPF is then managed by the Caisse des Dépôts et des Consignations. According to the report’s authors, the total cost of public finances will reach 2.1 billion euros per year from 2020.
To limit the bill, the state has already tightened controls several times on certain training courses, such as driver’s license, which were excluded from the CPF catalog (except for job seekers). The regulation, published in February last year, also limited to 1,500 euros the amounts that can be mobilized to finance training in so-called “specific” repertoire, such as foreign languages, welding or even permits required to practice a profession. And this is even if the beneficiary has more money in the CPF. This measure should allow the state to save at least 250 million euros.
In April, the remaining amount, that is, the amount that active people must pay in any case when registering for studies eligible for CPF, increased by 50% to reach 150 euros. This remaining fee, called “flat rate participation”, has not always existed, but was introduced in May 2024. This means that previously CPF holders could finance their studies 100% from their allocated funds without spending a single euro from their wallet.