Will pension reform soon be designated as the “Borne-Retailleau reform” , as the boss of the senators Les Républicains (LR), Bruno Retailleau, was able to push the measures of the right in the reform promoted by the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne. Result: a first version was finally voted on Saturday March 11, after eight weeks of demonstration, by 120 LR senators and 37 centrists on the 195 votes for.
Pensions: how Macron is betting on right-wing senators to save his reform
This text will now serve as the basis for a Joint Joint Commission (bringing together seven senators and seven deputies, with a majority on the right), which will have to lead to the law that the National Assembly will finally vote on. The shortcut is that now the “mother of reforms” wanted by Emmanuel Macron has officially become a right-wing reform. With measures that exceed the only new legal age of 64 years. Explanations.
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64, new legal age
The most popular measure of the reform: the passage of the legal retirement age from 62 to 64 years. This is the original axis of the government with its reform. This barrier is essential in the calculation of the pension: leaving earlier imposes a definitive discount, later a premium – on the parallel condition of having contributed enough quarters. Pushing back the legal age means pushing back the end of salaried activity (in the private sector, the average starting age is 62.9, mainly because workers want to avoid the current discount).
With the text adopted by the senators, all those born from 1is January 1968 saw their legal age raised to 64. And all those born between the 1is September 1961 and December 31, 1967 will see this age increase in an increasing manner at the rate of three months per year.
Longer contribution
The previous pension reform, in 2013, planned to increase the contribution period, that is to say the number of quarters in which one must have worked enough, to 43 years (172 quarters) to benefit from a retirement at full (without discount, always final). This was intended to apply to all those born from 1973. However, the reform voted by the senators will, according to the wishes of the government, accelerate this transition to 43 annuities. Concretely, it will be necessary to have contributed:
- 168 trimesters for those born between 1is January 1961 and August 31, 1961;
- 169 trimesters for those born between 1is September 1961 and December 31, 1962;
- 170 quarters for those born in 1963;
- 171 quarters for those born in 1964;
- 172 trimesters for those born from the 1is January 1965.
A generous senior CDI for bosses
If the senatorial right yielded on the questions of age and contributions (which appeared in its long-standing proposals), it was able to obtain as an addition to the text the creation of a new employment contract reserved for those over 60 years old. This “end-of-career contract” takes the classic form of the CDI, with two notable advantages for the bosses:
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- the salary paid will be exempt from family contributions;
- and he can separate from the employee whenever he wishes from the moment the latter fulfills the conditions to benefit from a full-rate pension (today, the employer is forced to wait until the employee turns 70 if the latter does not want to assert his rights).
A new tax on cigarette packs
This new senior CDI is scheduled to come into force on 1is September 2023. And the cost of such a measure – estimated by the government at 800 million euros – would be offset by a new tax on tobacco and cigarette packets.
The return of the senior index
Another concession of the senators to the government, but in a reformulated version: “the senior index”. This will be a study imposed on companies to assess their hiring (or not) of older employees. Today, only 56% of 55-64 year olds are employed. A rate that has been increasing since the early 2000s, but well below our neighbors (more than 70% in Germany).
Pension reform: “It is at 55 that the employer’s view begins to change”
Also, on the model of the gender equality index, the Senate makes the publication of indicators on the employment of seniors by companies compulsory. This obligation is valid from November for groups of more than 1,000 employees, and from July 2024 for companies with more than 300 employees. The National Assembly set the threshold at 50 employees, but the government says it has left it to the ” wisdom “ senators.
In the event of non-publication, the employer is liable to a financial penalty (maximum “1% of remuneration and earnings”). On the other hand, no obligation of result is fixed. If a company posts bad scores on the employment of seniors, this will not constrain it in any way.
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The (almost) end of special diets
As desired by the government, the reform will abolish certain special pension schemes, in particular those of the RATP, the Banque de France, clerks and employees of notaries, the electricity and gas industries, the Economic, Social and Environmental Council, etc. However , this end will only concern new recruits (affiliated to the general scheme), for an effective abolition from 2040. Note that the senators have not touched their own (and generous) special pension fund: a senator receives 2 200 euros net of retirement after a mandate of six years, which is added to a possible other pension or cumulates after several mandates (Mediapart estimates the pension of senators at 4,391 euros, for an average of twelve years of contribution).
Revalued mothers
Measurement is a bit technical. Today, having children entitles you to bonus quarters of contribution (automatically granted to the mother for children born before 2010). This is an increase for maternity or child rearing aimed at counteracting the possible impact of the arrival of a child on the professional career. Thus, a pregnancy or an adoption gives the right to four trimesters per child, and four other trimesters are granted for the education of the child.
Except that with this “bonus”, some mothers will accumulate the 43 years of contributions necessary from the age of 63. Also, the senators, with the approval of the government, have recorded that, from the age of 63, each additional quarter contributed will entitle you to a surcharge of 1.25% on the pension until the age of 64 – i.e. at most, a 5% increase for mothers leaving at the new legal age.
Long careers before age 21
Another agreement with the government: the extension of the long career system to all those who started working before the age of 21. Concretely, those who started working (for a salary of at least one minimum wage per quarter) between the ages of 16 and 18 will be able to benefit from an early departure at age 60. Those who started between the ages of 18 and 20 will be able to assert their rights from the age of 62. And, therefore, those who entered working life between the ages of 20 and 21, will be able to leave at 63.
Deficits will persist
Assistant to the bill, the Senate adds interesting financial elements. In particular that the balance of the basic compulsory pension schemes will not tend to a real improvement. In 2023, a deficit of 9.5 billion euros is to be expected, and in 2026 of 15.7 billion euros. Pensions will therefore remain in deficit after the reform, contrary to the argument of the government which said it saw its main motivation.
