BNo clever one who can say what the pension reform will look like when the government, confirmed or reshuffled in the aftermath of the legislative elections of June 12 and 19, will get to the heart of the matter. In two months, Emmanuel Macron’s project to postpone “gradually and in stages” the starting age at 65 has lost its consistency. Day after day, the Head of State and the ministers empowered to discuss this explosive subject strive to deconstruct what has been stated, to the point that the original project appears stillborn.
Admittedly, the reform is always judged « indispensable », in the words of Olivia Grégoire, government spokesperson. However, raising the legal age to 65 “is not a totem”, argued the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, suggesting that other avenues, such as extending the contribution period, could be explored. Considered urgent at the start, to the point of requiring the presentation of a bill to Parliament in the summer, the site will not really start until“in September or October” also specified the Minister of Labour, Olivier Dussopt.
The procrastination around the postponement of the retirement age, considered “the mother of reforms” by the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, are in the image of this funny campaign of the legislative elections where nothing hangs because the executive contrives to drown the fish rather than to specify its projects. Electorally speaking, Emmanuel Macron has some good reasons for practicing this game of avoidance. The French are mostly hostile to the idea of working longer; the unions are unanimously opposed to retirement at 65, to the point that Yves Veyrier, the general secretary of FO on departure, has given his successor the mission of leading the fight against this reform as a priority.
For his part, Jean-Luc Mélenchon has united the anti-Macron left around a project which advocates in particular the return to retirement at 60, whatever the cost (estimated at 100 billion euros by the Montaigne Institute). Faced with the risk of seeing the campaign for the legislative elections turn into a dangerous referendum for or against retirement at 65, Emmanuel Macron preferred to practice mine clearance.
No pedagogy
The ransom is double. First of all, the Head of State gives the impression of being on the defensive on a file which, until now, has not been very successful for him: the point-based retirement project that he carried during the first five-year term. did not succeed, so much so that he is to this day, unlike Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hoillande, a President of the Republic who has not managed to lead a pension reform. His opponents know it. They will do everything to keep him in this situation.
More fundamentally, no pedagogy is made around the question of working longer, not only to ensure the balance of the pay-as-you-go pension system, but more broadly to guarantee the financing of the social model. However, it is of course on this postulate that Emmanuel Macron has built his new mandate.
The Head of State intends both to continue lowering taxes and to begin to repay the impressive French debt, from 2026. In an increasingly gloomy economic climate, he can only hope to achieve this by substantially increasing the amount of work to boost growth. The more he gives the impression of tacking on this subject, the more he compromises the achievement of his objectives.