LONG CAREERS 2023. The highly contested pension reform should quite significantly reshape the so-called “long career” system. More beneficiaries, new age brackets… All the possible changes.
[Mis à jour le 7 avril 2023 à 10h28] At the heart of the highly controversial pension reform, the long career scheme is attracting attention. Indeed, it allows certain retirees who started their career early to benefit from early retirement, ie before the legal retirement age. And precisely, the pension reform plans to modify this device quite widely to allow more people to benefit from it. Indeed, two new levels should be created. A new to 18 years oldso as to retire at age 60, and another at 21 years old, to leave at age 63. As a reminder, the new legal retirement age should be set at 64 years old. To benefit from these early departures, it is necessary to present a complete career, either 172 quarters and 43 annuities. Also, it is mandatory to have validated 5 trimesters before any milestone agewhether the old ones or the new ones created by the reform.
The other great novelty for the long career scheme concerns people who have had a cut short career due to a parental leave. These people could therefore validate up to four additional quarters in this situation. These periods would also be counted in the calculation of the increased minimum pension, which should increase the amount of small pensions for certain women, forced to put their careers on hold to take care of their child(ren).
Today, to benefit from early retirement for a long career, you must have started working before 20 years or before 16 years old. Two very distinct thresholds. You should also know that two other conditions must be met. First, your pension insurance period must include, all compulsory basic schemes combined, a minimum number of quarters contributed. Also, you must have acquired a minimum number of quarters of retirement insurance at the start of your career. These 2 conditions for the duration of pension insurance vary according to your year of birth, the age from which you started working and the age from which you plan to take early retirement.
The 2023 pension reform should significantly modify the system by creating two new levels. A first to 18 years old, making it possible to retire at age 60, four years earlier. A second, to 21 years oldmaking it possible to retire at age 63, i.e. 1 year earlier than the new legal retirement age set at 64 by the reform. The creation of the threshold at 21 should allow 300,000 additional people to retire earlier.
Through the pension reform, the government promises a new device “adapted, so that no person who started working early is forced to work over 44 years”. But the system of long careers appears to be the main point of contention between the majority and the opposition. So much so that the Prime Minister has already let go of the ballast, by agreeing to grant an early departure at 63, for those who started working before 21 years old. The maximum threshold was until then at 20 years. A concession like an outstretched hand to the Republican deputies, who appear to be the only alliance solution for the majority, with a view to adopting the text without forcing it through with the help of a possible 49.3. This gesture on the part of the number 2 of the government could cost between 600 million and 1 billion euros per year.
Here is the new retirement age, based on your starting age. Attention, to benefit from this early departure, it is mandatory to have validated at least 5 terms before the age of 20, 4 if you were born at the end of the year:
- 58 years old : if you started working at 14 years old
- 59 years old : if you started working at 15 years old
- 60 years : if you started working at 16 years old
- 61 years old : if you started working at 17 years
- 62 years old : if you started working between 18 and 20 years old
- 63 years old : if you started working before 21 years old
The national pension fund for local authority employees (CNRACL) is the pension fund for the basic scheme of local government and hospital employees. It is a public administrative institution of the State, it is managed by the Pensions and Solidarity Department of Caisse des Dépôts. Note that the conditions for obtaining a “long career” pension are exactly the same as for other civil servants.