Posted Dec 1 2022 at 07:36 PMUpdated 1 Dec. 2022 at 07:37 PM
The Prime Minister had given this week in the atmosphere the pension reform by mobilizing the parliamentarians of the majority on the subject. This Thursday evening in an interview published on leparisien.fr, Elisabeth Borne begins to specify for the French the first arbitrations of the reform which she will unveil on December 15, after the last round of consultations, started this Thursday by the Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt.
The head of government first recalls that “the commitment made in the campaign is 65 years old”. But she insists on the “progressive” side of the reform and on its necessity according to her. “The gradual increase in the retirement age from 62 to 65 by 2031 is what will bring the system back to equilibrium within ten years”, underlines the Prime Minister, while indicating that if “another way” to “achieve the same result” is proposed by the social partners, it will be studied, excluding the reduction in the amount of pensions or the increase “in the cost of labor through additional contributions “.
Application from summer 2023
Above all, the Prime Minister ensures that the reform will apply from the summer of 2023, “from the generation born in the second half of 1961”. But, again, gradually. “It is not a question of saying that overnight, we go from 62 to 64 or 65 years old. The people concerned, born in 1961, will work a few months longer before they can reach the legal retirement age,” she says.
While the parliamentarians of the majority are attached to a “fair” reform, Elisabeth Borne recalls that “in order to carry out a fair reform”, it was decided, “especially for women”, not to “increase the age of discount, which will remain at age 67”. It also confirms that the minimum pension for a full career will be, when the reform comes into force, 1,200 euros, or 85% of the minimum wage.
It also ensures that the “principle” of long careers, “allowing to leave two or four years before the legal age”, will be “maintained and even relaxed” for those who really started working very early. The head of government also announces that the executive plans to take into account in the calculation of the contribution period of this device the periods of parental leave.
Cautiousness about arduousness
On the employment-retirement transition arrangements, she makes an opening on the side of the public service since she assures that the government is “ready to extend to the public service” the progressive retirement device.
The tone is on the other hand a little more cautious on the arduousness. If Elisabeth Borne recognizes that it is undoubtedly possible “to further improve the factors taken into account, in particular to strengthen the prevention of professional wear and tear” and if she draws new uses of the hardship account, “for example for a leave retraining”, she does not fail to underline the complex nature of the subject and wants to avoid “a gas factory”.
Finally, the Prime Minister also says that the “new recruits” of the special schemes will be affiliated to the general old-age insurance scheme, i.e. the grandfather clause for future recruits from the Banque de France, the RATP or the electrical industries. and gas (IEG). They have been warned. “We know that it will rock a little in January, recognizes a heavyweight of the majority, but we cannot do without this reform. We are committed”.