L’Express is associated with the Viavoice Surveration Institute, HEC Paris and BFM Business, to question a representative panel of French and executives on a topical subject. Augustin Landier, professor of finance at HEC and doctor of MIT economics, decrypts the results of this decision -makers’ barometer.
L’Express: A little less than one in two survey hopes that the retirement age, noted at 64 years by the reform of 2023, is reduced. Over the course of opinion studies, we see that this share of refractory tends to decrease. Do the French become pragmatic?
Augustin Landier: The subject remains divisive but it is true that an almost majority group judges that it is necessary to maintain, or even increase the legal age of retirement. These 9 or 10 % of respondents that argue to go beyond 64 years consider that seniors must participate in economic life longer. This is in fact what is happening: when we look at the INSEE figures, we can see that for ten years, people have been working more and later. It is due, in part, to previous reforms, but also to a general evolution of society. Almost 15 % of 66 -year -old French people have a job, and this increases clearly. The share of the healthy population around 65 is increasing. She wants to stay in working life, but not under the same conditions.
If the rejection of the reform of 2023 was so strong, it is because it was imposed by the way of 49.3, after a poor quality debate. After defending the idea that the right solution was points retirement, the executive focused on a single parameter, the legal retirement age. While there are many other variables. Focusing on legal age is an error because there are too many special cases. For various reasons, you can wish to leave earlier, accepting a discount. Remove this option from assets deprives them of a form of freedom. A menu of possibilities must be offered, which is economically financially but gives flexibility.
The 64 years are a marker, which aimed to center the debate …
The system is complex, people are not very aware, especially young people who are not so interested in these quarter stories. I myself who spent fifteen years from my career in the United States, I cannot say that I am clear about what I will be entitled to … at the same time, let the subject be simple when It is not aberrant and leads to distrust.
What do you think of François Bayrou’s decision to bring together in conclave the social partners To peel this reform? Some fear that a part is put back in the machine.
Ideally, the National Assembly could be a place of rational deliberation. Unfortunately, this is not the case right now. It is therefore a good thing to give a chance to the social dialogue between unions and employers. It is important to reintroduce flexibility, and to study the question of the activity of seniors in companies, and why not in the public service. Launching these debates is useful because they have never really taken place.
The CFDT was very open to the idea of points retirement. I also think that it is the good long -term system. There will be a pension layer by distribution, we will contribute, and the point value will be reduced automatically when there is less money in the system. In addition, people will spare their retirement and organize their lives according to their appetite for comfort, to the space they need … Special situations are very diverse. Leaving the people masters of their life choices above a certain minimum pension threshold is in my opinion what should prevail.
For this retirement savings to be generalized, it would still be necessary that the word “capitalization“Do not be taboo in public debate …
But what capitalization are we talking about? Individual capitalization is a good thing, and the French already practice it to a large extent, with their life insurance or their per, because they have in mind that they will need a mattress to compensate for the drop From their income when they retire: it is not taboo, it is common sense. It is necessary to encourage the French to invest more in shares. However, I am much more reserved for this small music which rises today according to which it is necessary to establish a state capitalization.
Some say that the savings of the French is poorly used and cry out in scandal because it goes to the United States. But finally, the saver is not silly: he seeks the most favorable performance. The State, which is financially constrained, dreams of being able to “arrest” our savings towards its projects: ecological transition, reindustrialisation … It would be confiscatory, ineffective and dangerous.
It is healthy that the French control their savings, rather than the Ministry of Finance. This preserves a burden of evidence on the profitability of each project: to obtain their money, you have to convince the saver. The great distrust that arouses the desire to line up the lower wool of the French therefore does not seem unfounded to me. Look at the pension reserve fund, created in 2001: as soon as there was a hole in public finances, successive governments have continued to punctuate it …
A short majority of respondents are aware that they are better off than the Germans, the Italians or the Spanish on the retirement age. Does this figure surprise you?
Yes, in good. Especially since the fraction which is frankly mistaken, thinking that the French go back later than their neighbors, is weak. Overall, there is no denial of reality in society. It is reassuring, and it shows that what is happening in Europe is known, that the information circulates. Afterwards, we feel that there is a very strong attachment in France during this period when we are supposed to “benefit” finally from life. In 2023, Simon Kuper, the correspondent in Paris of Financial Timeshad written an article, half-sarcastic, half-admirative, on this subject. He said that the French had invented a kind of golden age, unique in the world: the first ten years of retirement. This precious period when you can travel and have a good time, without family constraints and in a still satisfactory state of health.
It is possible that this preference for free time is stronger with us than elsewhere. But you have to be aware that it has a price, which must be collected collectively: lower pensions, lower consumption, a loss of power in the country. Do we really want it? The intuition of Emmanuel Macron, whom I share, was to say that France cannot remain a power listened to in the world only in condition of preserving a decent productivity and wealth per inhabitant. Topping much more than the others towards a free time, leisure society, has consequences on what we are as a nation.