The finance bill which will be presented in committee to the National Assembly this Thursday, October 11 includes a sensitive point for the finances of retirees.
This is an avenue that will be talked about a lot during the presentation of the 2025 budget, via the finance bill unveiled in Bercy by the Ministry of the Economy and Finance and that of the Budget. While the text proposed by the government will now have to be submitted to Parliament, it includes some savings avenues to reduce state spending.
One of these tracks had already “leaked” in recent days and led to numerous reactions. Despite everything, it does appear in the government’s final project, which Linternaute.com was able to consult this Thursday, October 10. It is simply a matter of touching the wallets of retirees via their retirement pensions.
Each year, basic pensions, paid by Carsat, are supposed to increase on January 1st. The mechanism is rather simple: the increase corresponds to the level of inflation recorded the previous year. As of January 1, 2025, it was therefore possible to forecast an increase corresponding to inflation for the year 2024. This is now below 2%, around 1.6 to 1.8%. . Enough to obtain an “increase” of approximately 13 to 15 euros for a basic pension of 800 euros per month. This is what is often called “indexing pensions to inflation”. This process makes it possible to maintain the purchasing power of retirees, year after year.
This time, the government plans to delay this alignment by 6 months. The amount of retirement pensions will therefore be in a way “frozen” during the first half of 2025. This delay would result in a saving of 4 billion euros for the State. Revised in July, pensions would not benefit from a retroactive effect. Revealed in recent days, without being confirmed by Michel Barnier during his general policy speech on October 4, this avenue had since already been debated and even fiercely opposed by several political leaders, including those of the National Rally whose vote could strongly weigh in at the Palais Bourbon.
Marine Le Pen mentioned it on her X account on October 5. “Postponing the indexation of pensions means robbing our elders of billions of euros of purchasing power. I will refuse this measure, which is all the more petty as it leaked the day after Michel Barnier’s speech, silent on this maneuver already used by François Hollande and Emmanuel Macron”, thundered the leader of the RN. His exit led to a response from the Prime Minister, saying he was “open to other ideas to find other means”, “in the upcoming parliamentary discussion”. A promise kept since, a week later, this avenue appears in the text of the government which will present its bill to the finance committee of the National Assembly on October 11. It promises to be one of the most commented points of the project…