The pension reform file should be reopened by the new government. What changes will be possible?
This is one of the hot topics of the new government: what future for the pension reform? Adopted with forceps, with 49.3, in the spring of 2023, the new provisions concerning the retirement age and the various modalities are still in the hot seat. At the beginning of July, the left-wing coalition of the New Popular Front won the most seats in the National Assembly and, at the other end of the spectrum, the National Rally emerged as the party with the most deputies on its own. What do the two have in common? The desire to repeal the pension reform. In the streets, the unions want to continue the fight against the retirement age set at 64.
However, after weeks of negotiations, Emmanuel Macron appointed a Prime Minister from the Republicans (4e political force of the Assembly) and a government including members of its coalition Ensemble (Renaissance -ex-LREM-, MoDem, Horizons…) and LR. So many ministers who supported the criticized bill.
However, it is not impossible that the pension reform will be modified in the coming months. Michel Barnier, head of government, said he wanted to “take the time to improve the reform”, while his Minister of Labor, Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet, said she was in favor of “making the last pension reform perhaps more sustainable for all and responding to the anxieties it may have generated, particularly among women.”
RN proposes law to repeal reform
The fate of the current pension reform could be decided on Thursday, October 31. On that day, a bill will be examined in the National Assembly: a “PPL” “aimed at restoring a fairer pension system by canceling the latest reforms concerning the retirement age and the number of annuities”. Supported by RN deputies, this text aims to return to the old retirement rules.
Marine Le Pen and her colleagues in the chamber want to restore the age of entitlement to 62 years from the generation of 1955 (instead of 64 years from the generation of 1968) and return to 42 years of contributions from the generation of 1961.
On paper, this proposal has something to appeal to the ranks of the Front: those of the ex-FN and those of the NFP, the left also campaigning for a repeal of the reform. The accumulation of deputies from these formations would allow 319 votes to be collected, i.e. an absolute majority. A red carpet for the return of retirement at 62? Not so sure, political war obliges.
The Communist Party, initially enthusiastic, has moderated its possible support for the RN, while LFI and the socialists are campaigning more to keep their heads down, not take a position and propose an amendment to the Social Security bill. As for the environmentalists, making a pact with the party with the flame seems unthinkable.
If only a majority of the participants in the vote is enough to pass a first stage of the law, the Macronist-LR camp should join forces in a vote against the RN proposal. It is difficult to imagine the retirement age going back to 62. Even if the text obtains a majority in the Palais Bourbon, it would still be necessary for the Senate (with a LR majority) to validate it in turn, even if it is the Assembly that has the last word. The ambition – although plausible – risks crashing against the wall of political reality.
A reform… reformed by the new government?
Throughout the interminable political soap opera, the question of the future of the pension reform has arisen. Above all, the opinion of the new ministers on the subject has been scrutinized. Upon his appointment, Michel Barnier said he was in favor of “opening the debate” with a view to “improving” the text, without “calling everything into question.” The Prime Minister “wants[t] to initiate an improvement, but respecting the budgetary framework.” Understand: marginal adjustments yes, the return to 62 years, no.
The same story from her new Minister of Labor, Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet. The latter pleaded to “make the last pension reform perhaps more sustainable for all and to respond to the anxieties that it may have generated, particularly among women.” Although she voted in favor of the reform in 2023, the now former Paris MP was critical of the simplification of the hardship criteria established by the Macronists, judging that the modifications had gone “too far.”
From then on, the one who played a central role in rolling out the red carpet for Uber for its arrival in France, as well as Michel Barnier, could therefore, in the coming weeks, partially reopen the pension issue: hardship, women’s careers and long careers would be the main points re-examined. Without knowing, at this stage, what could give rise to these new debates.