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For over a month now, the cuts announced in the 2025 Finance Bill, particularly with regard to Article 6 of the Social Security Financing Bill (PLFSS), have raised many concerns among businesses in the French overseas territories. Particularly in view of a reform of the Overseas Economic Orientation Law (Lodeom, formerly known as the Girardin Law), which allows employers to benefit from a specific exemption from employer social security contributions. Indeed, in an interview with France-Antilles on November 19, Hervé Mariton, President of the Fédération des entreprises d'Outre-mer (Fedom), stated that "the economic situation does not allow for a cut in the Lodeom". For the time being, however, it seems that the amendment championed by Saint-Barthélemy senator Micheline Jacques has avoided the dreaded "cut" mentioned by Hervé Mariton.
"Preserving Saint-Barthélemy's competitive labor costs
Canvassed by JSB following the Senate's adoption of the Social Security Financing Bill 2025 on Tuesday November 26, Senator Micheline Jacques explains: "Exemptions from employer contributions in overseas France will be revised by ordinance, involving a period of discussion between the government and parliamentarians. The aim of this ordinance is to organize the relationship between national exemption schemes and those in overseas France. It goes without saying that I will do my utmost to preserve the competitiveness of labor costs in Saint-Barthélemy during these negotiations. The ordinance will be issued within 6 months of the law's promulgation, i.e. by June, with retroactive effect to January 1, 2025. "
As a reminder, the 2019 Social Security Financing Act enabled Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélemy to negotiate a Lodeom scheme for exemption from employers' contributions that takes account ofa broad salary scale but providing for an exemption from social security contributions concentrated on social security charges, adjusted at the request of the two islands.
Last September, at the request of the Fedom and in anticipation of a possible government reform, Saint-Barth's Chambre économique multiprofessionnelle (Cem) asked the island's entrepreneurs to collect data. The aim was to obtain the precise data needed to demonstrate the current impact of the system on business results, employment and prices.

Rethinking the social protection system
Pierre-Marie Majorel, former president of the Saint-Barthélemy Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Council (CESCE), believes that the changes announced in the Lodeom law call for anticipation. This means rethinking the social protection system in force on Saint-Barth. The CESCE was the first to point out the significant financial surplus between contributions and consumption (benefits), which was followed by the work of Michel Magras (former senator, editor's note) and then that of Senator Micheline Jacques," recalls Pierre-Marie-Majorel. However, even though social responsibility was initially part of the range of services available in the transfers to the young Collectivité territoriale of Saint-Barthélemy in 2007, the social protection dossier remains on hold, and the general system has finally proved to be very useful and comfortable compared to the many financial risks associated with the autonomy of total social protection. "A system that exists in Polynesia, but which poses financing problems in particular.
For the former president of CESCE, everything depends on the growth of the economic model and the level of employment prevailing in the territory. His idea is therefore to reach an agreement with the State to obtain the possibility of collecting social charges locally, so as "to better control tax filers". While remaining within the general scheme in terms of benefits. "The advantage lies in the contribution rates, which would be more in line with the service provided," assures Pierre-Marie Majorel.
In 2021, the Lodeom scheme had an estimated impact of 21 million euros. "We know that the inhabitants of Saint-Barthélemy contribute more than they spend, and this surplus will increase if the tax exemptions are reduced," explains Pierre-Marie Majorel. This surplus is drowned out by the complex mechanisms of the general social security system. "The local private economy is particularly flourishing, and tends to pay far too much for the service provided by the social security system.says the former president of CESCE, who is therefore launching a debate on the advisability of setting up an independent health insurance fund in Saint-Barth.