The head of state has undoubtedly changed his mind on pension reform: in 2019, he publicly argued that shifting the retirement age was not a good idea.
“As long as we haven’t solved the problem of unemployment in our country, frankly, it would be quite hypocritical to shift the legal age. When today we are poorly qualified, when we live in a region in industrial difficulty, when you’re in trouble yourself, when you have a fractured career… Good luck already to reach 62! That’s the reality of our country”. This sentence was not pronounced by a representative of the CGT or by a figure of the Nupes, but by Emmanuel Macron, on April 25, 2019.
Admittedly, the Covid health crisis and the widening of the public deficit are indisputable new parameters since this declaration. Admittedly, Emmanuel Macron also reviewed his copy on the subject and made it known during the last presidential campaign. But the argument of the Head of State on the inefficiency of a postponement of the legal age to access retirement can only make you smile.
What was he saying exactly? On April 25, 2019, therefore, the President of the Republic organized a press conference as part of the “Great National Debate”, a response formulated to the crisis of yellow vests. He argued that the French economy structurally required more French working time, but indicated that raising the retirement age was a bad idea. The boss of the PS, Olivier Faure, was also amused by the strength of the demonstration, exposed by Emmanuel Macron that day.
“We have to work longer because we live longer. It’s common sense. When I look at our country today, compared to 40 years ago, life expectancy has steadily increased. increase and the age of entry into the labor market has continued to decline because we are doing more studies”, he said. He then also wondered about the ways to achieve this: “Should we lower the legal age, which is now 62? I don’t think so. […] I made a commitment not to do it and it is better, on such an important subject, to do as we have been told. Why ? We leave 62 years as the legal age, to make a much broader, much deeper reform which is to create this new system by point, which will make it possible to correct the real injustices of the system which are the special regimes. […] And that is much deeper, more ambitious and it should not be compromised by moving the legal age”.
“We must win the battle for full employment”
Emmanuel Macron gave a much more solid argument in the rest of his presentation, by analyzing the labor market for seniors and the inefficiency of only moving the retirement age slider: “We will tell us: ‘Now we have to go to 64. You already don’t know what to do after 55, people tell you: ‘Jobs are better for you’. That’s the reality, that’s the fight that we lead, we must first win this fight before going to explain to people ‘My good friends, work longer!’ […] I invite people who, in a simplistic way, say ‘This is the solution’, to first look at our society. We must win the battle for full employment.
During this speech, the unemployment rate in France was 8.1%, according to INSEE data. In the 3rd quarter of 2022, it was 7.3%. Enough to say that the “battle of full employment” has been won? To this debate, we should also add an even more relevant piece of data: the employment rate of 55-64 year olds is only 56% in France, according to data from the Darespublished in a report from April 2022. Figures that would easily fit into the Head of State’s argument, in 2019, to give him credit.