EXPLOSIVE RETURN WITH THE REFORM

RETIREMENTS

Faced with the unions united against raising the retirement age and the reluctance of the right to support retirement at 65, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne reiterated on Franceinfo on Tuesday that this threshold was "not a totem”, before a presentation of the pension reform on January 10. Several points remain to be clarified, in particular the postponement of the retirement age to 64 or 65 or even the French who will benefit from an increase in their pension to reach 1,200 euros.

The postponement of the retirement age to 65, “it is not a totem, I repeat. There are other solutions that will allow us to achieve balance in our pension system by 2030”. This is what Elisabeth Borne said on Tuesday, January 3.

The objective is “a presentation on January 10 then in the Council of Ministers on January 23 followed by debates in the National Assembly from the beginning of February. We would like the text to be voted on before the end of the first quarter for entry into force at the end of the summer, ”she explained.

Another certainty affirmed by the Prime Minister: “We will not go beyond the 43 years of contributions provided for in the Touraine reform to have a full pension”.

Similarly, "the threshold of 67 years we do not touch it", she said. This is the maximum age at which a French person can enjoy his retirement at full rate even when he does not have all his quarters.

Elisabeth Borne, however, was much more evasive regarding the amount of the minimum pension set at 1,200 euros by the pension reform, or 85% of the minimum wage.

Finally, when asked about a possible increase in the amount of employer or employee contributions, Elisabeth Borne assured that it was a "red line not to increase the cost of labor or even reduce it". "Lowering taxes for households and businesses is what has allowed us to create jobs", she assured, recalling that her "priority is full employment".

It will first be the secretary general of the CFDT, Laurent Berger, to be received at 3:30 p.m. by Élisabeth Borne. He will be followed by François Hommeril, president of the CFE-CGC, Frédéric Souillot, general secretary of FO and François Asselin, president of the CPME. On Wednesday, Cyril Chabanier, president of the CFTC), Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, president of MEDEF, Jean-Christophe Repon, vice-president of the Union of local businesses (U2P) and its general secretary Pierre Burban, Laurent Escure, general secretary of the UNSA, and finally Philippe Martinez, general secretary of the CGT.

“What we want is to preserve our pay-as-you-go system”

If the government insists on the need to carry out "these consultations (which) are useful" to avoid a sling and major strike movements like those which had already paralyzed the country as in December 2019, it also hopes to win the support of the Republicans . Without them, for lack of an absolute majority in the National Assembly, the government would indeed be forced to use again Article 49.3 of the Constitution, which allows the adoption of a text without a vote.

By way of justification, Elisabeth Borne reaffirmed, on Tuesday, the need to carry out this reform. “Our pension system is structurally in deficit and it will be over the next few years. What we want to do is preserve our pay-as-you-go system at the heart of our social model. It is a system in which our assets finance the pensions of our retirees”. “However, we are living longer and longer so the number of active people compared to the number of retirees is constantly falling,” she recalled.

However, “there will be no extra money. All efforts will be used to finance pensions”, she assured, affirming that the revenues linked to the pension reform will not be used to finance “anything else”.