“My function was not to help the government”

2023-11-18 07:00:34
Pierre-Louis Bras, former president of the Retirement Orientation Council, in Paris, November 14, 2023. ED ALCOCK / MYOP POUR “LE MONDE”

Pierre-Louis Bras was dismissed at the end of October from his position as president of the Retirement Orientation Council (COR). Criticized by the executive, in particular by the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, on the grounds that he would have fueled confusion in the debate around the pension reform adopted in March, he had been in the hot seat for several months.

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Matignon has just terminated your duties. Do you see this decision as a sanction, after the Prime Minister’s statements, which seemed to cast doubt on your impartiality?

In the Republic, no one owns their positions. The president of the COR is appointed by the council of ministers and it is normal for the government to change the holder of this position whenever it wishes. However, we cannot rule out the idea that this change is linked to the tensions you mention. For my part, I consider that I have faithfully reported on the work of the COR. By proceeding in this way, I did not subscribe to the dramatic narrative that the government wanted to promote to justify the reform: France is aging, pension costs are exploding, which will lead us to bankruptcy; therefore we must raise the legal age of departure. A minister summed it up with a formula: “Reform or bankruptcy. »

However, the projections established by the COR, before the reform, did not correspond with this scenario. They showed that, despite the aging of the population, the pension burden – that is to say expenditure, as a percentage of GDP – was stable, or even decreasing. These same projections certainly showed a persistent deficit in the system, but which was attributable to a reduction in the share of resources dedicated to pensions.

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The reflection that we often heard at the top of the State, when talking about you, was: “He didn’t help us. »

My function was not to help the government, but to report on the consensus established from the data between members of the COR.

Is the independence of the COR being undermined after the attacks from those in power and elected officials of the nation?

It will depend on the members of the COR, and I trust them. But if some persist in thinking that the president of the COR is there to ” help “ the government, and not to restore the fruit of collective reflection based on data, there will be a problem.

Several members of the government, parliamentarians from the majority and from the right found that the work of the COR minimized the financial problems of the retirement system or made it possible to say everything and the opposite about its situation. How did you react to these criticisms?

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