France Travail wants to use AI to determine which job seekers should be prioritized for checks

The media outlet La Quadrature du Net, in partnership with Radio France’s investigations unit, revealed an internal France Travail document detailing the trial of an algorithmic system designed to profile job seekers. The goal: reach the 1.5 million checks announced by Gabriel Attal by 2027.If France Travail promises an ethical model, the risks of AI going awry and the unavoidable lack of human oversight are cause for concern.

France Travail will profile job seekers using AI

The France Travail project is called “Targeting job-search monitoring.” To be more precise, and above all clearer, this is about profiling people seeking employment with the help of artificial intelligence. The public employment service explains that the project’s objective is to “use AI” in order to “identify cases requiring in-depth examination” and “automatically feed the job-search monitoring tool.”

To analyze each job seeker’s file, the AI relies on “26 key variables.” These include, among others, declared activities, recent interviews, the job seeker’s visibility among recruiters, level of education, the intensity and types of services used, the history of noncompliance, and how long they have been registered. On the basis of these key variables, the algorithmic model must detect people who might fail to meet their job-search obligations, placing them either in a “suspect” category or in the “not suspect” category. Those placed in the first category will therefore be subject to priority scrutiny.Let us nevertheless point out that, for the time being, this artificial intelligence does not impose any sanctions.

France Travail also wishes to « extend the use of the model to other audiences » in order to « automatically feed the monitoring tool and transmit targeted control lists each month ». As La Quadrature du Net points out, if we take into account all RSA recipients, who have now been required to register with France Travail since January 1, 2026, more than 6 million people could be assessed each month by the algorithm.

Mass surveillance and the risk of AI drift?

In 2017, the number of checks on job seekers amounted to 200,000 in France. This number rose to 944,000 in 2025. Gabriel Attal has announced a target of 1.5 million checks for 2027. The French government therefore wants to scale up checks on job seekers. Carrying out 1.5 million checks is hardly manageable for humans. The use of AI therefore seems inevitable.Likewise, given the number of cases handled by the algorithmic system, human supervision risks becoming, to say the least, very complicated.

And even if France Travail assures “the elimination of preconceived notions” by proposing “cases to be reviewed based on objective criteria,” how can we be sure that the AI will not exhibit deviant behavior? How can the AI judge a person fairly and ethically based on a few criteria, such as their visibility to recruiters or level of education? So many questions remain unanswered. La Quadrature du Net rightly criticizes France Travail for its lack of transparency regarding how its algorithmic tool works. Whatever the case, the process has now begun.

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Source: https://www.laquadrature.net/2026/07/20/france-travail-deploie-un-outil-de-profilage-algorithmique-a-des-fins-de-controle/