The pension system posted a surplus of 900 million euros in 2021, for the first time since the 2008 crisis, and should still show a surplus of 3.2 billion this year, according to the annual report of the Pensions Orientation Council (COR) of which AFP obtained a copy on Monday.
Back in the green thanks to the strong recovery in growth last year, the overall balance of French pension schemes should however deteriorate significantly from 2023, and its return to equilibrium is still projected towards the mid-2030s in the best scenarios.
The system remains structurally in deficit, says in an interview with Point the Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt, announcing that he will have an exchange with the social partners on September 19 on the basis of (this) report.
Everyone will find arguments there: the COR predicts that the pension system would be in deficit on average over the next 25 years, while emphasizing its work does not validate the merits of the speeches that put forward the idea of a dynamic no control of pension expenditure.
This annual report is also marked by new hypotheses (…) that are more unfavorable in the long term. In particular, the COR revised its main economic indicator downwards: labor productivity gains are now within a range of 0.7% to 1.6% per year, against 1% to 1.8% previously. This partly explains the maintenance of a financing requirement by 2070 in four of the eight scenarios envisaged.
Retirement : save by paying less tax. 12 contracts compared
A pessimism that also applies to the unemployment rate: while the government expects a 5% drop in 2027, the COR is still considering a long-term target of 7%. Even by reducing it to 4.5%, the deficit would be smaller but would not disappear.