For Laurent Berger, secretary general of the CFDT, we must first look at the work of seniors and the hardship, before dealing with the financial balance of the system. Bruno Retailleau, president of the Les Républicains group in the Senate, pleads for a strong reform.
The urgency of reform
Bruno Retailleau: Three reasons push us to move forward with this reform. First, demographics. For the first time in the history of humanity, four – at least – even five generations live together. France has destroyed, for ten years, the family policy, the family quotient, childcare, etc. This results in a lower birth rate. We are at 1 pensioner for 1.7 active people, tomorrow, 1 for 1.5 and, in 2070, 1 pensioner for 1.3 worker.
Then, we have a problem of justice and purchasing power of retirees. With Emmanuel Macron, pensions have never been so impoverished. In 2019, the CFDT calculated this impoverishment at 1,250 euros per person per year, or one month’s minimum wage. Generalized social contribution [CSG] and the deindexations affected around 8 million retirees for 4.5 billion euros in pension cuts. No one wants to increase contributions, given that social security contributions are very high in France compared to other European countries.
Lawrence Berger: The imbalance in the system is close to 10 billion euros per year, out of 320 billion in pensions paid each year, or around 3%. A citizen is not in a banking ban with a 3% overdraft at the end of the month. The 3% deficit needs to be addressed, but it is not overwhelming. The reforms of 1993, 2003, 2010 and 2013 purged many problems associated with the post-war baby boom.
We must stop believing that the French do not work enough. There have never been so many people in employment in the last thirty years. The average retirement age is close to 63 years old. The Pensions Orientation Council considers that this age will be close to 64 with the lengthening of the contribution period.
The red rag of the starting age
LB: For us, at the CFDT, the question of age is not the best indicator. The major issue is the contribution period. Many of us here think that working until 65 will probably be a reality and a desire, but this is not the case for many other workers who are in other situations. The contribution period is forty years in Sweden, while we will go to forty-three years in France.
I am annoyed by the assumption that the French would not work enough, and not long enough. We have increased the duration of careers for twenty years. The Touraine reform continues to apply, with the increase in the contribution period. The long career scheme is provided if you have worked four or five quarters before 20 years. Retirement projections are at age 64. I remind you that eight out of ten French people are opposed to the postponement of the legal retirement age. I never thought that polls should guide public action, but it must be taken into account in the current context of conflict.
I believe in free choice, solidarity between generations, the departure contract, working forty-three years until retirement. Age means making the most precarious workers pay a little more. I do not want to be among those who will state that there are, in this country, employees who will leave in good shape at 65 and others who will be relegated to solidarity measures from 60 or 62 years old, because they will be broken.
BR: In the Senate, we propose to do both: push back the age to 64 and accelerate the Touraine reform. It takes both to balance. The National Old Age Insurance Fund compared two hypotheses, that of a departure at 65 and another without age, but with forty-five annuities. In the latter case, people tend to leave before, without having fulfilled all their annuities, and they therefore receive a much lower pension.
Seniors at work
LB: A boss of a large aeronautics company told me that by raising the retirement age, instead of making people leave at 59, we will make them leave at 60. This is hypocrisy: keep them! 40% of people who retire are no longer in employment: they are on disability or unemployed without support from a business plan, minimum social benefits, in the absence of other rights, etc.
I’m tired of companies saying that you have to go until 65 and separating people before that by having compensation paid out of social security schemes or, for others, out of the company’s own funds. company. We must manage the question of pensions other than like a cleaver. Today, we retire on Friday evening, working hard until the last minute, turning off the light and leaving. It should be more progressive.
We must deal with the subject of work upstream. The employment of seniors is also a source of funding. The employment rate for 55-64 year olds stands at almost 77% in Sweden, against 56% in France, which is problematic. We plead to ask the subjects and that the government takes its responsibilities.
BR: We cannot envisage a totally à la carte retirement. We need rules for the duration of contributions, rules for the legal age of departure. Then we deal. It is better, on the basis of collective rules, to deal with questions of professional transition, long careers, arduousness, cases where the work becomes cumbersome and where people cannot be made to last too long.
The method
LB: In a country that is more or less democratically mature, we could debate what the new social pact would be on employment, pensions, work, social protection, in a text that would encompass everything. There, we have already started the sale by cutting. The work subject, we don’t know how to understand it well, so we’ll leave it. There are proposals that are not all legislative. We advocate for this: let’s discuss employment, work and pensions in a comprehensive text, at the beginning of 2023.
BR: The government will use the vector of an amending social security financing bill [PLFRSS], because he can use as many 49.3 as he wishes on the rest of the budgetary texts. But we can only include subjects that affect the finances of Social Security. So the measures that affect the labor code that we are currently talking about would rather be the subject of an ad hoc law. If the government uses the [PLFRSS]it is not because it is the best vector for a comprehensive pension reform, it is because of the situation of the National Assembly and the fact that it does not have its majority.
Social risk
BR: The Macron government is doing what so many governments in France have done: it is reducing politics to a simple question of social costs. We now have the expense strongest public in the world. Are we better educated for all that? Are we better cared for, safer? It takes the courage to reform the hospital, health, school, to have a new criminal policy, but it is this courage that we do not have. Suddenly, the temptation is great to say: “My booty will be the pension reform. »
LB: What can happen in January 2023 is a form of revolt by these famous second-line workers, so useful during the health crisis, who will have the feeling that they are going to be stepped on. If the project goes through two different texts, with, on the one hand, hard parametric measures, in particular on the age of departure and on the other promises on the arduousness, not a CFDT member will believe in the loyalty of this commitment. I fear many secessions.