Debates over the legal retirement age continue to rage. If Laurent Berger, boss of the CFDT, has been intransigent about his opposition to retirement at 64, others are warning about “France’s financial emergency”. This is the case of Agnès Verdier-Molinié, director of the Ifrap Foundation and author of “The true State of France”. Guest of the Grand Rendez-vous this Sunday morning, she insisted on recalling the need for pension reform, explaining that the current system “cannibalizes savings”.
Finding a financial balance
The author warns in particular about the financial balance of the country: “How much savings will there be left at the end? Are we really going to rebalance the pension system? Are we going to stop the fall in pensions?We, the working people, who are contributing at the moment, if we do nothing, we are contributing for pensions which will not be at 50% of the last salary but in the long term at 40 30% of the last salary. Do we understand it? “, she castigates on Europe 1.
In comparison with other European countries, which have retirements at 65 or even 67, Agnès Verdier-Molinié pleads for a significant decline also in France, 64 years being neither sufficient, nor what had been promised Emmanuel Macron. “During the presidential campaign, he had clearly said that we were going to turn 65, that it was recorded. And that’s also why the French who voted for him, voted,” she recalls.
“65 years or 64 years: in reality, it is not at all the same thing. We are told it is roughly the same amounts of savings if we add 64 years and the acceleration of the increase in number of quarters that we call the Touraine reform. But that is valid for the short term. But in the medium to long term, it is not at all the same thing, “adds the director of Ifrap.
Retirement at 67?
According to the OECD, the theoretical “normal” retirement age is actually higher in our neighbours, since it is 65 in Belgium and Spain, 65.5 in Germany, and between 66.6 and 67 years in Italy.
“67 would have been really ideal, but 65, we agreed that already, it improves things because by 2050, that’s a little over 40 billion euros in savings and it really helps to balance the regime while 64, it runs out of steam very very quickly, much too quickly”, explains Agnès Verdier-Molinié, criticizing the position of the unions. “We have unions that are not accompanying reforms, because they have not understood the financial emergency for France,” she warns.