2023-09-18 20:28:54
The Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt, during the Meeting of Entrepreneurs of France, at the Longchamp racecourse, in Paris, August 28, 2023. OLIVIER LABAN MATTEI / MYOP POUR “LE MONDE”
The pressure is increasing on the social partners. While the unions and employers have been negotiating, since mid-July, a new agreement on Agirc-Arrco – the private supplementary pension fund – the government is raising, in an increasingly insistent manner, the hypothesis according to which the State will drain the resources of the regime. According to Sophie Binet, the general secretary of the CGT, this issue was raised on Monday morning by Olivier Dussopt, the Minister of Labor, with whom she spoke on rue de Grenelle.
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The executive is considering a contribution from Agirc-Arrco which could ultimately be in a range between 1 billion and 3 billion euros per year, if no measures are taken to participate in the financing of small pensions at the end of ongoing negotiations between social partners, reports Ms. Binet. Mr. Dussopt’s entourage does not comment.
Such an idea is not surprising. It appeared, first discreetly, during the fall of 2022, during the development of the pension reform. After the promulgation, on April 14, of the law which postponed the legal age of departure to 64 years, the powers in power returned to the charge, in a more direct tone: their wish was – and remains – that the Agirc-Arrco is making a move in favor of small pensions, one of the goals of the reform being to increase them to 85% of the minimum wage for a person with a full career.
“Scandalous and unacceptable”
The regime is, in fact, in excellent health, with a surplus of 5.1 billion euros in 2022. Its financial reserves, accumulated over the years, amounted to nearly 69 billion at the end of December. A “treasure” which could grow and improve, with the reform of April 14: the 64-year-old rule has the effect of reducing pension expenditure and increasing resources (workers contributing longer due to the extension of their career).
Apart from Ms. Binet, other union officials had heard of the scenarios imagined by the executive. But they did not involve such high amounts. Confederal Secretary of Force Ouvrière, Michel Beaugas explains that his government interlocutors had spoken of an effort of the order of one billion euros per year. One of the methods under study would consist of the State no longer fully compensating the reductions in contributions intended for Agirc-Arrco.
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The idea of extracting money from the regime revolts several employee organizations. “It’s scandalous and unacceptable”, confides Ms. Binet. If Agirc-Arrco’s accounts are largely in the green, she adds, this is, essentially, the result of previous decisions taken by employers’ and employees’ organizations – “which the CGT had not endorsed, moreover, because they had reduced rights in the name of reducing deficits”. ” Today, continues Ms. Binet, it is not possible not to return the favor to employees and retirees, if the financial situation improves following the sacrifices that were imposed on them a few years ago. » If the government carries out its threat, this risks preventing the financing of new rights, in particular to take into account “years of study and ruined careers”.
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