France Minimum Wage: Gross Hourly SMIC Since 1951

The France minimum wage series here is the gross hourly SMIC published by INSEE, month by month from January 1951 to August 2026 — 908 observations covering the SMIG, its 1970 replacement by the SMIC, and every revaluation since. The rate is set by decree, revalued at least annually and automatically whenever the consumer price index for the lowest-income households rises by 2% or more. This Eco3min dataset is the full series in a single downloadable file.

Dataset: France Minimum Wage — gross hourly SMIC (1951–2026) · Updated 2026-08-01

Source: INSEE · gross hourly minimum wage (SMIC), whole of France, in euros

Macro Takeaway

Dataset Overview

Dataset Variables

The CSV, Excel and JSON files contain the following columns.

Column names match the CSV headers exactly.

Download the Complete Dataset

The full France minimum wage series is available in CSV and Excel formats.

Direct Data Access

INSEE publishes the current amount and a table of past revaluations, but not a continuous machine-readable series back to 1951. The Eco3min structured dataset returns the whole history:

Direct CSV Access — Eco3min Structured Dataset

https://eco3min.fr/dataset/fr/fr-smic-hourly.csv

This URL returns the complete dataset in CSV format. It can be used directly in pandas, R, curl, or any data tool. JSON and XLSX are available at the same path with the corresponding extension.

Using the Dataset in Python

import pandas as pd

url = "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/fr/fr-smic-hourly.csv"
df = pd.read_csv(url, parse_dates=["date"])

print(df.head())
print(df["smic_hourly_gross"].describe())

Using the Dataset in R

library(readr)

url <- "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/fr/fr-smic-hourly.csv"
df <- read_csv(url)

head(df)
summary(df$smic_hourly_gross)

Both examples load the dataset directly from the URL — no download or API key required.

Methodology

The series is retrieved daily by an Eco3min pipeline from INSEE’s BDM time-series database. The value is the amount in force during the reference month, so the series is a step function: it stays flat between revaluations rather than interpolating. The reference month is not the publication month, a distinction that runs through the calendar of French data releases.

One conversion note matters for reading the early part. Amounts before 2002 were set in francs and are expressed here in euros at the legal conversion rate of 6.55957 francs; amounts before the 1960 revaluation of the franc are in new francs. This is INSEE’s own presentation, not an Eco3min transformation. The 0.12 euro of January 1951 is therefore a real historical level, not an artefact.

Historical Regimes

• 1951–1968 — the SMIG years. The floor starts at 0.12 euro per hour in January 1951 under its original name, the SMIG, indexed on prices alone. It reaches 0.46 euro by June 1968.
• 1968–1981 — from SMIG to SMIC. The Grenelle agreements of 1968 lift the floor sharply, and the law of 2 January 1970 replaces the SMIG with the SMIC, adding indexation on general wage growth to the price clause. The rate reaches 0.50 euro in January 1970 and 2.55 euro by June 1981.
• 1981–2000 — the disinflation plateau. From 2.55 to 6.21 euro. Nominal growth slows sharply as inflation falls, and the discretionary boost above the automatic clause becomes a recurring political decision rather than an annual reflex.
• 2000–2005 — the 35-hour convergence. The rate reaches 8.03 euro by July 2005 as the multiple hourly minimums created by the working-time reform are merged back into a single SMIC.
• 2005–2020 — the slow decade. From 8.03 to 10.15 euro in fifteen years. With inflation near 1%, the automatic clause rarely triggered outside the annual revaluation.
• 2021–2026 — the inflation cadence. Nine revaluations in five years, from 10.25 to 12.31 euro. Several were triggered mid-year by the automatic 2% clause rather than by the January schedule — the mechanism doing exactly what it was designed to do.

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Macroeconomic Dataset Hub

This dataset is part of the Eco3min macro-financial data repository.

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Sources

• INSEE — gross hourly minimum wage (SMIC), whole of France, dataset SMIC-COTISATIONS, retrieved from the INSEE BDM time-series database.
• Legal basis: law of 11 February 1950 creating the SMIG; law no. 70-7 of 2 January 1970 replacing it with the SMIC.
• Reuse: INSEE public statistics may be reused, including commercially, subject to acknowledgement of the source and preservation of the integrity of the information.

Dataset Reference

Eco3min Research. (2026). France Minimum Wage — gross hourly SMIC (1951–2026). Source: INSEE.<br> https://eco3min.fr/en/france-minimum-wage-dataset/