Laura Laplaud
modified to
9:33 a.m., September 20, 2022
Emmanuel Macron could push through the pension reform in force in Parliament in the fall, angering the unions. For Éric Woerth, quaestor of the National Assembly and Renaissance deputy for Oise, guest of Europe Matin on Tuesday, “there is no rush to make a reform quickly”.
Emmanuel Macron seems determined to push back the legal retirement age to 64 or 65, compared to 62 currently. But the Head of State comes up against the unanimous hostility of the unions and the French. For Éric Woerth, quaestor of the National Assembly and Renaissance deputy from Oise, guest of Europe Matin on Tuesday, “we need a pension reform roughly every ten years, we have a pay-as-you-go system which is magnificent and must be preserved”.
“It’s a magnificent chain of social solidarity”
“It is the most beautiful justice, that one generation pays the pensions of another and thinks that the generations which will come, will pay theirs. It is a chain of social solidarity which is magnificent and that, it is necessary to protect,” he continued. However, the National Pensions Guidance Council (COR) estimates that the pay-as-you-go pension system (active people contribute to pay pensions for retirees) will be in deficit from 2023 and for the next 25 years. What solutions are then available? Postpone the retirement age as the executive wishes, extend the duration of contributions as preferred by the unions?
“There is no rush to make a reform quickly, we talk all the time about pension reform [et] it’s anything but a forced passage, it’s a permanent and constant debate in French society: what pension system [voulons-nous] ?”, he wondered about Europe 1.
Pay-as-you-go pension, capitalization pension
For the former chairman of the Finance Committee of the National Assembly, the choice must be made between a pay-as-you-go or capitalization pension system. “If we simplify things, either we want a pay-as-you-go system and there are age conditions which are fundamental since your lifespan is getting longer and you can’t make generations pay for everything. other things to pay for themselves. Either you want a funded system,” he explained.
Two systems and two very different mechanisms since with the capitalization system, you save for your own retirement and not to pay the pension of retirees. “Anyone who thinks we can do otherwise [que le système par répartition] are in fact often defenders of a capitalization system without wanting to say so”, he concluded.