The cross : How do people view the pension reform?
Frédéric Dabi : The question is not simple because the pension reform has not yet been detailed. But its principle has been known since the presentation of Emmanuel Macron’s presidential program.
The battle of opinion will be very hard for the government. It is committed under the seal of skepticism and mistrust, even rejection, because only 22% of French people say they are in favor of extending the legal retirement age from 62 to 65 years. The French consider that this threshold of 65 years is to erase the Mitterrandian reform of retirement at 60, to bury a social achievement. For them, there is both injustice in substance and authoritarianism in form, in the event of recourse to “49.3”.
What dressing can the executive advance to pass the reform?
F. D. : The government can try to raise the legal age from 62 to 64, instead of 65. When we test this passage at 64 with the French, they are 38% to declare themselves in favor of it. The government can also take into consideration the hardship and long careers…
But the most important thing is to correctly explain the purpose. A reform is accepted if it offers a clear path. But the purpose has changed. First, it was explained that the reform made it possible to gain budgetary leeway on the ecological transition, health and education. Now, Emmanuel Macron explains that it is a question of saving the pay-as-you-go pension system.
What can be the pathways?
F. D. : If the reform is the blueprint of Emmanuel Macron’s program, the postponement of the legal age from 62 to 65, the passageways will be extremely narrow, if not non-existent. If the reform proposes 64 years, it will mean that the government has listened. But rarely has a pension reform been so badly started, it is frozen even before being presented.
Beyond the pension reform, is the social climate explosive?
F. D. : Public opinion is depressed. It’s resignation more than anger. There is an obsession with inflation and purchasing power that worries the French. There is also a tension on the work which pays badly. We are in a context of “yellow vest”: the ferments of a very hard social movement exist, but the spark is missing.