Pension reform: why it will be difficult to return to an age of departure at 62

The reform of 2023 passed the legal retirement age at 64 years old. But gradually. If we suspended this reform this year, what age of departure would we have reached?

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Prime Minister François Bayrou is ready to hand over the pension reform, voted in high struggle in 2023, on the profession, to attract the sympathy of the Socialist Party and at the same time avoid censorship in the National Assembly. Before putting the social partners around a table to discuss the new contours of the reform, he entrusted a flash mission to the Court of Auditors, so that it establishes an undeniable photograph of what our retirement system is: As an amount is the deficit, what will it be in 2030, should we integrate balance subsidies that the State pays each year to bail out the retirement of state officials and certain special regimes, etc. The figures that will be released this afternoon to the social partners and the extent of the displayed deficit are important. They will also indicate the effort that will have to be made to put the pensions back in the nails. The Prime Minister authorizes the social partners to explore all the avenues, provided that their proposals do not degrade … accounts!

Assuming that they succeed and find other ways to put the system to balance than the decline of legal age at 64, at what age should we then stop working? Not at 62, since the reform of 2023 has already started to have effects. It entered into force on September 1, 2023, with a retirement age gradually raised by three months. The first affected? Those who were born from September 1, 1961 were able to leave at the legal age of 62 years and three months, at the end of 2023. In 2024, it was those born in 1962 who were able to leave, but at the legal age of 62 years and six months. Those who leave work this year, in 2025, must reach 62 years and nine months. And so on the basis of three additional months per generation, until reaching the famous 64 years for those born from 1968.

If the social partners reach an agreement and find other solutions than the decline in the legal age, those who retire this year will therefore have already reached 62 years and nine months. Difficult, under these conditions, to go back and below this terminal, for a simple question of equity. Or it will be necessary to increase the pensions of those who have left since the reform. A beautiful gas factory in perspective! The social partners now have their hands.