After three months of meetings and numerous consultations led by Elisabeth Borne with the social partners, the executive lifts the veil on its project and presents its text on the pension reform.
Nothing has yet been definitively decided on the legal retirement age, but there is no longer any doubt about the government’s determination to raise it. This is the flagship measure of the executive and a campaign promise by Emmanuel Macron that he justifies by the need to save the pension system threatened with bankruptcy. Despite the unions’ unanimous refusal to have to work longer to open up pension rights, the government has undertaken to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 or 65 by 2031. text, presented this Tuesday, January 10, 2023, should therefore specify how many additional years the French will have to work to open their pension rights.
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To achieve the objective, the government has chosen two options. Either gradually raise the legal age, by four months a year, from this summer, which would bring the legal age to 65 from 2031, or combine a departure at 64 with an increase in contribution periods to 43 by 2035 compared to 42 years currently. However, the government has stated that it does not want to go beyond the 43 annuities required to reach the full rate and to maintain the age limit at 67 years. In the case of the first scenario, namely by increasing the minimum duration by four months per year, the first generation affected will be that of 1961, and more precisely people born between 1er July and the 1er December 1961. From the generation of 1970, the legal retirement age will be set at 65 years.
Long and arduous careers
On the other points, the government wants to be reassuring, and does not announce any in-depth changes. Regarding the taking into account of long careers, that is to say people who started working before their 20th birthday, and who have validated five terms, they will continue to leave two years earlier and something new, those who have validated 10 quarters could even leave four years before the legal retirement age.
Regarding the recognition of hardship, the latter could be conditional on “enhanced medical monitoring”, which is a point of disagreement with the unions, preferring the automaticity of early departure without the need for medical opinion. The executive would like to improve the current professional prevention account which makes it possible to count points with a view to leaving earlier for retirement. To the six existing hardship criteria, such as night work, 4-8 shift work, repetitive tasks, work in a difficult, noisy, hot or dangerous environment. The reform could add three other conditions requested by the unions: painful postures, the carrying of heavy loads and mechanical vibrations.
A minimum retirement at 1 200 euros
Regarding the minimum pension, the project could announce the creation of a pension at 85% of the minimum wage, or approximately 1,200 euros, against 75% of the net minimum wage, or approximately 1,015 euros per month. This new minimum pension should concern those who have made a full career at minimum wage. Here too, the unions expect more, they want employees with incomplete careers, especially women, to benefit from it. In addition, this revaluation should only concern future retirees, while Emmanuel Macron had undertaken to include all retirees.
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On the table also the removal of the taking into account of summer jobs and especially the removal of certain special regimes, a subject there too which is likely to cause tensions. The bill could only concern new recruitments, which would allow veterans to keep their special scheme provided they are less than 17 years from retirement, in 2020, this is the famous “grandfather clause”. father “. Thus, employees born before 1975 would retain their benefits, and those of the RATP, the SNCF, the Banque de France or even state workers born before 1980 would not be affected by this abolition. Even if the latter will leave earlier than private sector employees, they will still be affected by the reform since they will have to leave two or three years later than at present. The only exceptions: the dockers and dancers of the Paris Opera, their special regime would be preserved.
An unfair reform for the unions
The text, which could take the form of an amending Social Security financing bill, will be presented to the Council of Ministers on January 23 and then examined in Parliament from February, for entry into force scheduled before the end of the year. ‘summer.
Since the beginning of the consultations, the unions have been up against this reform and its extension of the retirement age. They denounce an unfair reform and affirm, contrary to employers, that this reform “ can wait “. Unanimously opposed to the project, the unions are preparing to take to the streets. For the moment, the government has made trade union unity, ” a feat ” for the number one of the CGT, Philippe Martinez who, ironically, recalls that ” it has been twelve years since all the unions united against a reform “.
Faced with the sling to come, the executive will always be able to resort to 49.3, the ultimate weapon which allows it to overcome the vote of the National Assembly.
The right in reinforcement of the presidential camp?
The government’s reform proposal should be included in a budget text, that of the financing of Social Security, in order to allow the executive to pass in force if a majority is not found in the Assembly. But it seems to be taking shape little by little.
It’s not yet a white smoke but it’s getting closer: common ground between the presidential camp and Les Républicains seems less and less improbable. Asked by the Sunday newspaper, the boss of the right-wing party, Eric Ciotti, said he was ready to vote for the reform. A choice of consistency and responsibility according to MP LR. But the government will have to make concessions: lowering the retirement age to 64 and only by 2032 and raising minimum pensions to 1,200 euros, including for French people who are already retired. Nothing, however, incompatible with the reform wanted by the government, Elisabeth Borne and Emmanuel Macron would have decided in favor of the 64 years in recent days.
An agreement with LR would in any case be a relief for the executive, because the support of the 62 right-wing deputies would make it possible to avoid a new recourse to article 49-3, likely to fuel the anger of the French, including the three -quarters are opposed to this reform. It would therefore only remain for Emmanuel Macron and the government to manage social mobilization, the extent of which is difficult to estimate for the moment.