Determined to follow its timetable at all costs, the government presents, this Monday, January 23, in the Council of Ministers its pension reform without yielding anything on the main demands of the unions, who intend to further amplify the mobilization after a massive and successful start. The postponement of the legal retirement age from 62 to 64, the flagship measure of the reform, was unanimously rejected by the unions, as well as by most of the opposition and, according to the polls, a vast majority of French people. Witness the success of the demonstrations organized on Thursday, January 19, which mobilized between one and two million people in France.
Will this be enough for the executive to change gears? The Head of State estimated on Sunday that he had already shown “openness” in relation to the program for his second five-year term which initially provided for the 65th birthday. However, he refused to say clearly that he would maintain the 64 years until the end, so as not to “substitute” the parliamentary debate. “I hope that the government, with the parliamentarians,” can “adjust” the text, he assured. Before being more inflexible: “the needs” are “known”, and “I believe that there, now, we must be able to move forward”. The Odoxa poll, unveiled on Saturday in Le Figaroaffirms that 59% of French people think that the government will have to modify or even abandon its text.
For their part, the ministers take turns, ensuring that they are ready for “dialogue” in order to “enrich” the text. Adjustments that should only be found at the margin. They opened the door for the first time, during the weekend, to firmer measures on the employment of seniors. The Minister of Public Accounts, Gabriel Attal, said he was ready in The Parisian to “look without taboo at coercive measures for companies that do not play the game”. The next day, Olivier Véran, government spokesperson, drives home the point BFM TV. Asked whether to be more demanding of company executives, he replied: “Why not?” before adding, “We are not on a coercive point-in-blank line, rather we tend to trust people. But if we have to put safeguards in place to ensure that seniors have their place in the company…”, he continued.
For the time being, the government is simply betting on a “senior index”. This new tool intended to change the behavior of companies leaves the unions largely skeptical. Note that the employment rate for 55-64 year olds is 56% in France, below the European average (60.5%). If the refusal to provide information will be sanctioned, no retaliation is planned for companies where the employment of seniors is not progressing, except for the reinforced obligation to negotiate a social agreement in order to improve the situation. The prospect of “additional constraints” to improve the presence of older workers in companies is therefore on the table, at the risk of angering employers’ organizations.
Hardship at work: the government could review its copy
Another measure that could be modified is the issue of hardship at work. A few days ago, the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, suggested that the medical follow-up could be carried out by the nurses and nurses report our colleagues from France Blue. The objective is to relieve occupational medicine, a sector that is already operating at just-in-time. As a reminder, the government text aims to create new tools to identify the most difficult positions, in order to set up medical monitoring, by occupational medicine.
Conversely, other measures, constituting the backbone of the pension reform, remain untouchable. The 43 years of compulsory contributions to leave at full rate, for example, and above all, the retirement age, therefore fixed at 64 years by the text. The Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt, closed the door on Monday to a government retreat on the postponement of the legal retirement age to 64, stressing that “to come back to this point would be to give up the return to equilibrium of the system”. Asked about the possibility of the text being modified during the parliamentary debate, Olivier Dussopt replied: “Each time an amendment will allow us to improve the text without renouncing the return to balance in 2030, nor the fundamentals of reform, obviously we will be open to it”.
At a time of tension, Gabriel Attal, Minister Delegate for Public Accounts, may well guarantee that the project can be “enriched”, even if there is “nothing much left to give up.” The executive is therefore moving on a thread between promise of dialogue and firmness. If Gabriel Attal explained not to be “condemned to arm wrestling”, Olivier Véran ulcerated the left by saying that the demonstrations against the pension reform “do not change things”. Will the government be able to surf on this double talk for a long time?