The ministers were in full force this Monday morning at 10 a.m. around Emmanuel Macron for the presentation of the pension reform bill. Four days after the mobilization of more than a million French people in the streets against this text, the executive says it is listening. But there is no question of moving the starting age to 64. The reform was therefore adopted by the Council of Ministers.
At Matignon as at the Élysée, the line is the same: “no change of course”, we insist in the entourage of Élisabeth Borne. “We are not going to start feverishly wanting to change things”, explains an adviser.
“We must be able to move forward”, says Emmanuel Macron
Same assurance with Emmanuel Macron, Sunday evening, at the end of the Franco-German Council of Ministers. “We know more or less and even exactly the needs that are ours. They are known and the mandate that was mine was at 65 years old by 2031. We have fitted it out and we are putting 64 years old. There has already been a opening, a change, but I believe that there, now, we must be able to move forward and commit ourselves to the government being able to do its work with Parliament with serenity, the will to convince and to move the country forward. The tenant of the Élysée affirms that the parliamentarians will be able to arrange this reform.
A starting age that the Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt, confirms Monday afternoon, conceding this first “development”. “It is one of the elements of the reform which guarantees the return to balance, so it is absolutely fundamental, and it is a point on which we know that there is a disagreement with the trade unions” , he says, emphasizing that the government does not want to “lack responsibility for future generations”.
“Compromise is not immobility”
During her wishes to the press on Monday afternoon, Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne was also uncompromising on this course. “The compromise is not immobility”, defends the head of government, determined to apply this reform and adding that she was not unaware of the social movement of Thursday, January 19. She now hopes that the debate will be readable in Parliament, project against project, and that this will enrich the text.
However, certain points appear to be non-negotiable, such as the contribution period set at 44 years for those who started working between the ages of 16 and 18. “Yes, these people will contribute one more year”, concedes Élisabeth Borne, “but it must also be said that they will leave four years before the others”, she insists.
The Matignon tenant also returned to the proposal of the MoDem deputies to extend the weekly working time from 35 hours to 35 hours and 30 minutes. “I am happy to see that there is a lot of creativity and reflection at the MoDem”, she laughs. In reality, the government has no intention of opening a debate on the 35 hours. Elisabeth Borne admits in passing that the French pension system is complex. “I went to a public meeting last week, and I discovered the regime of the tobacconists,” she explains to the press.
After the Council of Ministers, the text will land next Monday in the Assembly’s Social Affairs Committee, before being debated in the Chamber from February 6.