“The government must be stopped in its mad demolition of our pension rights”

Rnothing will therefore be dropped on the merits to be able to complete our pension system. Certainly, the government pretended to back down on the form. The threat of an amendment in the Social Security draft budget was arguably intended to make landing on a law in January more democratically palatable. But the government spokesman, Olivier Véran, has found the formula that leaves no doubt about the forced passage assumed to raise the retirement age to 65: the power in place will do it “whatever the method”.

Here we go again! The counter-reform of pensions had been thrown out the window, it is coming back through the door. At the beginning of 2020, we led an intense parliamentary noria with 19,000 amendments tabled for the La France insoumise (LFI) group alone, while a historic mobilization unfolded in the streets.

Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers Pension reform: the unions are agitating the threat of a social movement

Having sat day and night on the special committee on pensions and then in the hemicycle of the National Assembly, I was at the forefront of this battle. I observed there the unpreparedness and the stubbornness of Macronie. I saw the contempt of the oppositions and the repeated lies unfold there, with a 1,000-page report stuffed with totally eccentric projections. I heard there the fierce defense of austerity and the law of the market.

With the method of obstruction, we had saved time. The Covid-19, in February 2020, had finished curbing a government walled in its dogmatism. We were well aware that we had won a break-in victory. But, faced with the unpopularity of his attack on such an emblematic social conquest as our pension system, Emmanuel Macron had to backpedal a little during the presidential campaign. The idea “was never about raising the legal age from 62 to 65 overnight”, he said then. And yet…

Rising unemployment among seniors

The stubbornness at the top of the state to destroy our regime has not aged a bit. Nothing works. Nor the many denials made by the Pensions Orientation Council (COR) to the shameless disinformation on the so-called « deficit » of the system – in reality surplus, with a controlled trajectory until 2070. Nor the growing unemployment rate of seniors which should discourage any idea of ​​extending the time in employment. Nor the fact that women and the precarious would be the big losers of an extension of the contribution period and a questioning of the pay-as-you-go system.

You have 59.1% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.