The unions fear a decline in the retirement age this fall.
Postponed but not cancelled, the pension reform remains on stand-by, the government still considering its entry into force in the summer of 2023. The unions, who are unanimously opposed to it, are worried: they fear that a measure will be surreptitiously slipped into the Secu financing bill this fall, for example raising the retirement age to 64 or 65 or accelerating the Touraine reform of 2014 which would amount to increasing the number of annuities required (43 years in 2032) to benefit from a full pension.
On their guard, the unions stressed Monday to Olivier Dussopt, the Minister of Labor in charge of the file, that any passage in force would provoke their mobilization and their withdrawal from the consultations. ” This would block all other construction sites », Underlined Cyril Chabanier (CFTC). ” To launch in a vertical and brutal way the postponement of the legal retirement age is to set fire to the country “Warned Laurent Berger (CFDT).
For its part, the government has a vital need for this reform. This is the only lever he has identified to free up budgetary margins to bail out the state coffers and finance new social measures on school, health or dependency.
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Faced with this blockage, the arbiter should be the Pensions Orientation Council (COR) whose annual report, expected in June and then postponed this fall, leaked on Monday. According to this 346-page report, of which Le Figaro got a copy, the pension system posted a surplus of 900 million euros in 2021, a first since 2008, and is expected to post a surplus of 3.2 billion this year. A “cagnotte” which is explained by “ the strong resumption of growth ” last year.
But this return to better fortune will only be short-lived. From 2023, the balance of the pension plans should once againdeteriorate significantly “and its return to equilibrium remains projected”mid 2030s in the best of scenarios. The system remainsstructurally in deficit “, moreover reiterated to the social partners Olivier Dussopt, who will bring them together again next Monday to discuss the report of the COR.
As always, everyone will see the glass half full or half empty. Because if the COR predicts that “the pension system will be in deficit on average over the next twenty-five years “, he underlines at the same time that his work “do not validate the merits of speeches that put forward the idea of an uncontrolled dynamic of pension expenditure “. Everyone will discuss the merits of the parameters used, whereas the COR experts based themselves on new, more unfavorable hypotheses. The COR has thus revised its main indicator downwards:productivity gains» are now within a range of 0.7% to 1.6% per year, compared to 1% to 1.8% previously. This partly explains the maintenance of a deficit by 2070, in half of the scenarios envisaged. A pessimism that also applies to the unemployment rate: while the government is counting on “a drop to 5% in 2027 ”, the COR is still considering a “target » by 7% in the long term.
The officials concerned
Despite these harsher settings,“The report shows that the situation is under control. It’s less pessimistic than expected. This comforts us in the idea that there is no need for immediate reform,says Michel Beaugas (FO).If the government nevertheless carries out a reform, it will be necessary to tell the truth to the French and explain that it is to respond to the injunctions of the European Commission, not to make up for a deficit.“.
On the side of the employers – favorable to the reform for financial reasons of balance of the accounts but also philosophical of rehabilitation of the value work -, one underlines the very theoretical side of the report/ratio of the COR. “In the long run, it’s always balanced. At a horizon of seventy years, it is enough to modify a parameter of 0.01% and we restore the balance, it is not relevant“, estimates Éric Chevée, vice-president of the CPME, who pleads to adopt”a 15-year horizon that corresponds to operational reality”.
In addition, the employers point out that the COR figures depend on the agreements adopted, in particular on civil servants. “For the COR, everything is fine but with 17 billion euros in state subsidies to finance the pensions of civil servants and special schemes“recalls Éric Chevée. “The real problem comes from the public service whose system is structurally in deficit. But this deficit is masked by the totally extraordinary employer contribution rates“, had already alerted at the end of August Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, the president of Medef. If the state employer contributed like a private employer,“the deficit would actually be 30 billion euroshe pointed out. The debate has only just begun (again)…