Jean-Christophe Combe said that a deficit in the old-age branch of Social Security, which finances retirement pensions, would prevent investments in the autonomy branch.
Is the future of the old age law dependent on the pension reform? It would seem so, according to the Minister of Solidarity Jean-Christophe Combe, invited Friday morning to debate on France Info with Victor Castanet, author of Gravediggers , the high-profile investigation into abuse in nursing homes belonging to the Orpea group. “If one of the branches of Social Security, in this case the old-age branch which pays pensions, is heavily in deficit, obviously we will have trouble finding other funding, moreover, to fund support for the elderly“, recognized Jean-Christophe Combe.
The minister responded to Victor Castanet who reported the content of an interview he recently conducted with Jean-Christophe Combe. “When we had a discussion with Mr. Combe the last time, he explained to me that the ambition of the law (old age, editor’s note) to come would be conditioned on the success of the pension reform“, recounted the investigative journalist. According to him, this conditioning puts professionals in the aging sector and families of residents in awe. “[Ils] are waiting for a law on old age that they have been promised for years, which is constantly being postponed, and today they are being told that, basically, the ambition of this law will depend on the success of another reform“, hammered Victor Castanet, believing that”we cannot condition the dignity of the elderly in nursing homes».
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“It’s the solidarity system, that’s how it is. That is to say that we have five branches and these branches must be balanced”, defended the former president of the Red Cross. “If we already have to get 25 billion euros on pensions, it will be difficult to get 10 […] to finance support for the loss of autonomy“, he continued. According to the Libault report, which is authoritative, around ten billion euros of annual investment are necessary to finance the aging of the population.
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For years, successive governments have promised to act in favor of the autonomy of the elderly by investing massively. This law, truly Arlesian, never went beyond the draft stage. Emmanuel Macron himself had undertaken in 2018 to have a text of this type adopted, without the declaration being followed by effects. The observation would have greatly embarrassed the president and his teams at the time of the publication of the Gravediggersin January 2022, while the presidential campaign was in full swing. This is what Victor Castanet says in the expanded edition of his book.
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The Minister of Solidarity wanted to defend Emmanuel Macron’s record on the autonomy of the elderly against Victor Castanet on Friday morning. “Means, we put them. 9 billion euros will be invested over the next five years“, he said, recalling that the National Council for Refoundation is currently considering aging well. Jean-Christophe Combe has also shown himself “very favorablethat companies in the aging sector reinvest part of their profits in actions of general interest, without advocating the establishment of a “coercive system».
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