Gwenaelle Chauvin, a former entrepreneur, will exhaust her unemployment benefits in November and will then fall under the welfare benefit for people with few resources (RSA). In Saint-Brieuc, October 14, 2025. LOUISE QUIGNON FOR LE MONDE
Gwenaelle Chauvin announced it on LinkedIn: She was unable to find a job and had run out of money, so she "just moved back to Brittany to live with her mother." It was a huge step backward for the energetic 55-year-old woman. She was too old to convince an employer to hire her, but too young to retire.
Chauvin is a mother of two who has created two companies, one of which she ran for about a dozen years with her partner. The downward spiral began when she separated from him. Forced to find a job, Chauvin first landed a fixed-term contract with a local government in Occitanie (southern France), where she lived, then another, and another. Six such contracts followed in just 13 months. Then, nothing. Despite sending out a thousand applications over a long year and attending countless job fairs, she did not find another position.
You have 87.61% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
