François Bayrou interviewed by the Retirement Orientation Council

2023-09-22 10:11:54
François Bayrou, High Commissioner for Planning, speaks to the press after a meeting with Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, September 18, 2023. THOMAS SAMSON / AFP

François Bayrou performed the same gestures as when he was a high school teacher. Heard on Thursday, September 21, by the Pension Orientation Council (COR) in his capacity as High Commissioner for Planning, he wrote on a board. Not to give a French lesson, like in the mid-1970s, but to deliver the truth about the figures. The president of MoDem considers that the population has not been correctly informed about the seriousness of the financial situation of our pension plans.

At the heart of the controversy is the data provided by the COR, a group in which representatives of large administrations, social partners, parliamentarians and qualified personalities sit. The data in question show that the pension system is currently generating surpluses: +900 million euros in 2021 and +4.4 billion in 2022.

This presentation is misleading, for Mr. Bayrou, because it is based on accounting tricks that, according to him, we too often fail to mention in public debate. His main objection is due to the fact that the level of “employer contributions” to pay the pensions of state employees is significantly higher than that practiced for private sector employees: a little more than 74% for civil servants ( and even 126% for the military), compared to 16.5% for workers in the commercial sector.

Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers Controversy surrounding the “hidden deficit” of the pension system

Thanks to this “surcharge”, the state pension system is in balance. Such an effort, which deviates from common law, materializes in a ” grant “ which Mr. Bayrou estimates at “40 billion euros per year”. The problem, he continues, is that our “public finances are already degraded” and it is therefore necessary ” borrow “ to raise this amount, “which contributes to increasing the debt in very significant proportions”. “It is morally unbearable because the burden will fall on future generations, while they will, at the same time, have to bear the costs linked to the ecological transition”he believes.

” One step forward “

Mr. Bayrou has been holding this speech for several months. In December 2022, he outlined this in a report, as High Commissioner for Planning. His thesis is inspired by work carried out by Jean-Pascal Beaufret, a former inspector general of finances, who published several articles in the magazine Comment around the idea of ​​a “hidden deficit” in retirement plans. Also heard, Thursday morning, by the COR, Mr. Beaufret came up with even more massive figures than Mr. Bayrou on the subsidies which are mobilized to balance the system.

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