Elisabeth Borne presents, this Tuesday, January 10, the pension reform project. The executive, which wants to go quickly, will have to face a united trade union front.
SourceAFP
© STEPHANE MOUCHMOUCHE / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP
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Jour J for an emblematic reform. The government presents, Tuesday, January 10, its choices for the future of the pension system, the postponement of the legal retirement age announcing a strong opposition in the street and in Parliament, despite the measures of “social justice” promised.
Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne will unveil at 5.30 p.m. this reform wanted by Emmanuel Macron to “preserve” the pay-as-you-go pension system. According to the executive, there is “urgency” to redress a regime which could post a deficit of around twenty billion euros in 2030. To this end, the government could announce the raising of the legal age of departure to 64 years , instead of the current age of 62, gradually from autumn 2023. This measure would be coupled with an acceleration of the extension of the contribution period, which would increase to 43 years before the 2035 horizon set by the Touraine reform of 2014.
This postponement to 64 years rather than 65 years could earn the government the support of the right LR, which has defended this option for years in the Senate. The other oppositions and the unions are standing up against any increase in the legal age, believing that it would especially affect the most modest, who started working early and already have their quarters at 62 years old.
The rest is hardly in doubt: gathered at the end of the afternoon at the Bourse du travail in Paris, the numbers one of the eight major unions (CFDT, CGT, FO, CFE-CGC, CFTC, Unsa, Solidaires, FSU ) should call employees to a first day of demonstrations and strikes on January 19 or 24. “If Emmanuel Macron wants to make her his mother of reforms […], for us it will be the mother of battles”, warns the boss of Force Ouvrière, Frédéric Souillot. In the energy union strongholds, the RATP and the SNCF, the long-term extinction of the special regimes will provide additional arguments for mobilization.
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Compensation measures
According to the latest polls, a majority of French people are opposed to raising the legal age. The reform as a whole has received mixed reviews. “Since we are living longer, it is perhaps normal that retirement be reformed”, judge Claire Cadorel, 42, questioned on the Grand Place in Lille. But Olivier Rohas, 41, project manager in sustainable development, fears that an age measure “really damages our quality of life”, even if he “understands” the imperative to “finance our pensions”.
To pierce the front of the unions and influence the first of them, the CFDT, the government has put forward compensation measures. The minimum pension will be raised to 85% of the minimum wage (soon to be 1,200 euros net per month) for a full career. This could concern not only future retirees, but also those of today, another key to a compromise with Les Républicains.
The government insists on maintaining a “long career” system: departure will always be anticipated by two years for workers who have validated five quarters before the age of 20, and could be four years for those who collected ten.
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The return of three hardship criteria… removed in 2017
To improve the retention of seniors in work, the quarters carried out within the framework of an accumulation of employment and retirement should now count for the pension, and access to phased retirement will be facilitated and opened to civil servants. In addition, the government wants to create a “senior index” that companies with more than 50 employees will have to publish, which arouses the hostility of employers.
In terms of hardship, the three criteria abandoned in 2017 (carrying heavy loads, painful postures and mechanical vibrations) should be reinstated, subject to a medical examination that the unions refuse. But “even with positive measures on long careers or hardship”, “there will be no deal with the CFDT”, warned its secretary general, Laurent Berger.
Reassured by possible support from the right but refreshed by unanimous union opposition, the executive wants to move quickly. He should include his reform in a draft amending budget for Social Security presented to the Council of Ministers on January 23, before his arrival the following week in committee at the Assembly. Where the left Nupes promises him a deluge of amendments.
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