This week the French government announced a series of measures to support businesses during and after the COVID-19 crisis. These measures include:

• Postponed Payments – mandatory payments for taxes and social contributions (URSSAF) have been postponed
  • To postpone tax payments: Interested parties should contact their tax department directly or use this portal.
  • To postpone the payment of social contributions: Employers with an URSSAF due date on 15 March can postpone the payment of social contributions by adjusting the payment sum according to needs. The payment can be postponed for up to three months. The requests must be submitted by 19 March 2020 at noon. Contributions may be postponed for up to three months.
• Tax Credits – will be provided on a case-by-case basis for the most difficult situations.
• Rescheduling Credit Repayments – there will be support from the State and the Central Bank in negotiations of rescheduled credit repayment with banks. Read more.
• Government-backed Credit Lines - Public Investment Bank Bpifrance is mobilized to offer guarantees to banks for companies that need new credit lines. Read more.
• Emergency Solidarity Fund – intended for micro-businesses and independent workers, a total of 1 billion EUR has been granted for the 600K businesses who have a turnover below 1 million EUR. The Fund will be established in the following days by the government and will be available as of 31 March. The payments will be managed by the General Directorate of Public Finances (in French: Direction Générale des Finances Publiques) and the practical implementation will be soon communicated on their website.
• Anti-bankruptcy scheme – the Ministry of Economy has announced an anti-bankruptcy scheme for companies employing at least one employee and which will find themselves in difficulty despite the use of all other schemes. The scheme will be activated on a case-by-case basis.
• Simplified Unemployment System – in support of efforts to maintain employment a simplified and reinforced partial unemployment system will be launched.
• Dispute Resolution Support – the Business Ombudsman (Médiateur des entreprises) will be available to help resolve customer-supplier disputes.
• Force Majeure Status - state and local officials will use this to waive all late penalties for public procurement contracts.
• Government-guaranteed loans: The Government is implementing an exceptional guarantee scheme to support bank financing for businesses of all sizes. It will be able to cover all new cash loans granted between 16 March to 31 December 2020. These loans cannot be the subject to any other guarantees. Interested individuals must contact their banks to apply for the loan.
• Single POC – each region will now have a single email and phone point-of-contact for all related questions and support requests.

The eBay Government Relations team will continue to monitor these COVID-19 response measures in France and share them via eBay Main Street. Read more on the procedures to follow to access the measures implemented by the French Government to support businesses here.