Crediting periods of unemployment to your account

Periods of unemployment with benefits from January 1^st, 1997

Periods of unemployment with benefits from January 1^st, 1997, due to termination of an air crew member’s employment contract, result in the payment of contributions by Unédic ^(*).

You will need to send CRPN your yearly statement of unemployment benefits at the beginning of the year, as soon as you receive it from the French unemployment office France Travail.

CRPN will use this document to check the information reported by Unédic and add to or correct it if there are any errors or omissions.

When you register with France Travail, also check that the following information is filled in correctly:

• The name of your supplementary retirement pension scheme (CRPN),
• The date on which your employment contract was terminated,
• The name of your last employer

Accruing entitlements

If UNEDIC has paid CRPN contributions on the basis of your periods of unemployment and these periods are eligible to be credited to your account, they will be credited free of charge, in full with regard to time and in part with regard to salary, to your CRPN career.

CRPN will send notification during the 2^nd half of the following year, once these periods have been credited to your account, and will upload your updated career history statement (“relevé de carrière”) to your personal account.

Given these turnaround times, we will not be able to provide information before the end of the year on entitlements generated by credits accrued for the previous year, and even less so on entitlements generated by accruals for the current year.

Additional buybacks

If you are not a CRPN pensioner

• For those under age 50:
  • Please refer to the table on page 4 of our guide entitled “Buybacks and free credits” to review the rules.
  • When periods of unemployment are credited to your account, an updated career history record (“relevé de carrière”) is uploaded to your personal account.
  • You will also find, in your personal account, a buyback proposal (available only during the 4th quarter of the validation year). The years in which you had periods of unemployment will be listed in the proposal (this can be downloaded in PDF format) along with the amounts payable if you go through with a buyback.

• For those ages 50+:
  • During the period immediately prior to full retirement, you can carry out an additional buyback to bring these credited periods of unemployment up to the full amount of the last salary that was credited to your account. If interested, you can request this buyback proposal once you know your retirement date, no more than six months prior to claiming all of your entitlements.

If you are a CRPN pensioner

In light of Unédic’s payment turnaround times, an exception can be made so that this additional buyback, which can only take place once Unédic’s contributions have been credited to your account, can be carried out after you have entered full retirement.

An additional buyback proposal is sent automatically to the retired member.

Retired members who receive this proposal only have a few days to submit their payment.

However, any periods of unemployment occurring after the date on which your retirement pension became payable cannot be credited to your CRPN career. Indeed, the same period cannot serve as the basis both for pension payments and for the accrual of entitlements under the same scheme at the same time.

Periods of unemployment prior to January 1^st, 1997

Any periods of unemployment prior to January 1^st, 1997, can only be credited to your account through member buyback.

You can request a buyback simulation online requests and applications, section of your personal account.

Alternatively, you can download the form entitled « Request a buyback, contribution payment, or free credit simulation », fill it out, and submit it (possibly accompanied by the supporting documents):

• Either as a scanned document attached to our contact form, which you will find in the «Help and Contact» section,
• Or by mail.

To learn more, please refer to our guide entitled «Buybacks and free credits».

(*) Unédic does not pay contributions on certain periods for which unemployment-related benefits were paid. In this case, some of these periods may be eligible for buyback under the CRPN scheme.

Drawing unemployment benefits on top of a CRPN pension

You can draw a CRPN pension and unemployment benefits at the same time if you qualify separately for both.

The payments you receive from CRPN will not be affected.

The French unemployment office “France Travail” has its own rules for drawing unemployment on top of a pension and will subtract a percentage of your lifelong CRPN pension entitlement from any unemployment benefits you are awarded. Please contact France Travail with any questions on these rules.

In order to calculate your unemployment entitlements, “France Travail” will ask you for a certificate from CRPN. You will need to notify us about this so we can issue you with a certificate of lifelong pension entitlement which does not show any top-ups to which you are entitled.

Claiming your pension upon exhausting your unemployment entitlements

An exception under article R6527-27 of the French transport code allows you to claim your pension with no rate reduction if the following requirements are met:

• You must have exhausted your period of entitlement to the unemployment insurance benefits listed under article L.351-3^(*) of the French Labor Code, if your contract, which must have been an air crew contract, was terminated pursuant to article L.1233-3 of the French Labor Code, excluding terminations under the provisions of articles L. 6521-4 and L. 6521-5 of the French transportation code,
• You must have reached age 50 by the date of your claim,
• You must have credited 20 years to your account, which comes to 7,200 days.

If you decide to claim your pension under these rules, please send CRPN your application to claim your pension along with a copy of the certificate your employer will have filled out for France Travail when your employment was terminated.

This scheme may also benefit flight crew of French Polynesia made redundant on economic grounds, after a period of 24 months, subject to fulfilling the conditions of age (50) and years of pensionable service (20 years of pensionable service).

When you put together your full pension application, you will need to include a certificate issued by the French unemployment authority “France Travail” that shows the date on which your unemployment benefit entitlements ended and lists the employer through which your unemployment entitlements were accrued.

(*) replaced by articles L. 5422-1 through 3 of the French Labor Code.