The beginning of the year promises to be explosive between the unions and the government. The pension reform, extremely contested by the unions, must indeed be presented in detail on Tuesday January 10 for an application “from the end of the summer of 2023” according to the executive, and this in a tense context with a power to purchase chipped away by inflation. Tuesday and Wednesday, Elisabeth Borne receives the social partners for final interviews which are likely to turn into a dialogue of the deaf. The text will then be presented on January 23 in the Council of Ministers, announced this Tuesday Elisabeth Borne, before being examined in the National Assembly in early February. The Prime Minister did not specify whether it will be an amending budget or an ordinary bill.
During his televised wishes of December 31, Emmanuel Macron did not go into the details of the text. “We need to work more”, he however assured, to avoid “continuous [er] to finance the current system on credit. The project is not the same as that presented during the previous five-year period and will therefore not aim to review the entire architecture of the system to switch to a universal points scheme. But three years later, the unions, very united on the issue, are not more favorable to the new text.
This is the emblematic measure of the government project, supposed to stem the imbalances to come from the pension system and unanimously criticized: the gradual raising of the legal age of departure by two or three years, i.e. up to 64 or 65 years old. During the presidential campaign, Emmanuel Macron wanted the legal age of departure to be pushed back by 4 months per year from the summer of 2023, until 65 in 2031.
“Discussions are continuing even today, argued Elisabeth Borne on Tuesday morning on franceinfo. The President of the Republic said it […] during the presidential campaign, we carried out a reform with the retirement age at 65 years. It is not a totem I repeat. There are other solutions that can bring the system back into balance […] by 2030″.
Other options are indeed being considered, in particular the “mixed formula” of postponing the retirement age (for example to 64, as the Senate wants, with an increase of three months per year) coupled with an acceleration the extension of the contribution period. This would then increase to 43 years (172 quarters) before the 2035 horizon set by the “Touraine reform” of 2014, thanks to an increase in the minimum contribution period by one quarter every two years, or even every year.
The executive has undertaken not to go beyond the 43 annuities required to obtain the full rate. Elisabeth Borne reaffirmed this Tuesday morning: “we will not go beyond 43 years of contributions to have a full pension. No one will have to work 47 or 48 years old, that’s wrong”. In addition, the postponement of the legal age will have no effect on the age for cancellation of the discount, which will remain fixed at 67 years. Thus women, whose careers are more often “chopped”, will have a full pension at the same age as today, argues the government.
It was a promise from candidate Macron. The revaluation for all retirees (new and current) of the minimum pension. Today, this amounts to 75% of the minimum wage. The government wants to increase it to 85%, or around 1,200 euros per month. However, nine months later, the Minister of Labor in charge of the reform, Olivier Dussopt, holds a completely different speech: “The commitment made by the President of the Republic, it is for the new retirees”, explained- it on December 8 on the set of C à vous (France 5). For the unions, excluding part of the retirees is “unacceptable”, the latter want clarification from the government.
At the RATP as with the electricians and gas operators, the special regimes will be closed for new entrants, as is already the case at the SNCF. And these professions, as well as railway workers and civil servants (including those in the “active category”), will also have to leave two or three years later than today. A prospect that announces a strong mobilization in these union strongholds. The increase in the retirement age could however start a little later in these special schemes, because the Woerth reform of 2010 – which has already raised it by two years – will not be fully effective there until 2024.
While the unions protest against the postponement of the retirement age, arguing that too few seniors have a job (35.5% of 60-64 year olds, end of 2021), the government recognizes that the success of its reform involves job retention at the end of a career. To do this, it provides that the quarters carried out within the framework of an accumulation of employment and retirement now count for the pension, but also that access to phased retirement is facilitated and open to civil servants.
The executive also intends to prevent a resumption of activity from being able to result, for seniors, in a loss of remuneration. To this end, the government is considering a “bonus” which could see the light of day as part of the unemployment insurance scheme implemented on 1 January 2024. Finally, the government wants to create a “senior index” negotiated in each branch and published by companies with more than 50 employees, together with a possible penalty for those who do not fulfill this obligation to publish. This option arouses the hostility of employers.
- Long and arduous careers
Under the measures of “social justice”, the executive plans, in addition to raising the minimum pension (85% of the minimum wage for a full career), to continue to allow those who started working young to leave earlier. The departure will always be anticipated by two years for those who have validated five quarters before the age of 20, and could be four years for those who have accumulated ten.
In terms of arduousness, the reform could take up certain criteria abandoned in 2017 but dear to the unions: carrying heavy loads, painful postures and mechanical vibrations. The creation of a “retraining leave” for beneficiaries of a professional prevention account (C2P) is also under study, as well as the setting up of a “professional wear and tear prevention fund” for trades identified as difficult.