“Should the legal age, which is now 62, be raised? I do not believe ! These words of Emmanuel Macron, spoken during the Great Debate in 2019 but also in 2017, during the presidential campaign, today take on a particular resonance, when the government unveiled its bill on the reform of pensions, postponing the departure of active workers to the age of 64.
” I do not believe (to raise the retirement age) for two reasons, the first is a little direct, it is that I undertook not to do it, then assured Emmanuel Macron in April 2019. And it is still better on an important subject to do what we said. The second reason is that as long as we haven’t solved the problem of unemployment in our country, it would be quite hypocritical to raise the legal age. »
“Frankly, it would be quite hypocritical to shift the legal retirement age. When you are in difficulty yourself, good luck already to reach 62! “, he also launched.
On social networks, these words have logically become a subject of ridicule, even a communication weapon for the opposition. “According to Macron, Macron is a hypocrite,” mocked Manuel Bompard, coordinator of insubordinate France, on Twitter.
Embarrassment in the majority
Asked about the subject, the members of the government struggled to hide their embarrassment. Questioned by a journalist on this volte-face by Emmanuel Macron on the sidelines of his presentation of the reform project to the press, Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne chose to dodge.
VIDEO. Pension reform: legal age, minimum pension, special schemes… Elisabeth Borne’s announcements
On the set of BFMTV, Olivier Dussopt was confronted with a video of himself dating from 2010. Then socialist deputy, the one who is now Minister of Labor castigated the “government and the Elysée”, which considered “to gradually raise the legal retirement age from 60 to 63 by 2030”. He also denounced the “contempt shown to the social partners that you finally receive without listening to them, nor hearing them”.
“Political maturity means that we sometimes avoid simplistic solutions,” he reacted on Tuesday evening. It is sometimes necessary to assume to mature and to measure the constraints and the complexity of things. “We are also at a very different time with an unemployment rate that is beyond measure”, he also underlined, to justify the hiatus between the words of Emmanuel Macron in 2019 and the pension reform project presented on Tuesday.
“Measures of justice”, according to Borne
Contacted by Le Parisien, a Renaissance deputy responds on the merits, and in particular rebounds on the evocation by the Head of State of the employment of the oldest working people, in 2019. “It is true that we have the lowest employment rate for seniors. Based on index results (the senior index, which will be mandatory for large companies, will indicate the share of seniors employed in companies), nothing will prevent us from adding constraint to it later. »
After three months of procrastination and consultation, the government has delivered its verdict and confirmed the expected increase in the legal retirement age from 62 to 64 by 2030. Less than the 65 years promised by Emmanuel Macron before his re-election in 2022. But enough to “guarantee the balance” of the budget at the end of the decade, while financing “measures of justice”, assured Élisabeth Borne.