Pensions, there is enough to bring down five to six governments in the next few years, warned Michel Rocard in 1991… Thirty years have passed and we are still there. The trap of pension reform has closed on Emmanuel Macron. Under pressure from the unions and part of his majority, the President of the Republic finally chose the path of consultation to deliver a text before the end of winter.
But a reform, for what? To rebalance the accounts of the general scheme of course. The situation is not catastrophic or explosive, but the deficits are structural and the billions are piling up, as detailed in the latest report from the Pensions Guidance Council (COR).
The problem of the last sequence is not in this objective – praiseworthy – but in the elements of language used to justify the reform to the French, who are mostly hostile. And now this big bang is necessary to finance the school, the green transition, the old age, and why not the rearmament of France… But there, the account is not there. Admittedly, according to Bercy’s calculations, raising the retirement age by four months a year from 2023 would generate 15 billion euros in revenue from additional contributions by 2027, and between 5 and 10 billion savings on the payment of pensions. It’s always good to take, but insufficient to finance all these titanic projects.
By making pensions the alpha and omega of economic policy, the executive silently renounces tackling a much more complex and explosive file: that of the overhaul of all public spending. Spend less here, to spend more and above all better elsewhere. Dare and choose. Some tracks ? Dynamite the maquis of business aid. Or unraveling the skein of stone aid, ineffective while poor housing remains endemic. To run several hares at the same time, one catches none.
