The reason is more than surprising.
Retirement pension is essential, sometimes vital, to enable elderly people to live decently. And it’s well deserved after working for a lifetime. However, some elderly people can find themselves deprived of their retirement pension for months, despite a full career of contributions. This is precisely the case of a 92-year-old woman living in Normandy, who has not received any pension payments for months even though she has contributed to pension plans throughout her career. She then finds herself without resources, an exceptional situation which affects her daily life.
What makes her situation even worse is that she is not even entitled to her husband’s survivor’s pension. Normally, in France, the survivor’s pension supplements the income of a surviving spouse according to precise rules of the social system, but in his case, these rights simply remain blocked. Despite his numerous efforts and without resources, the situation becomes unbearable on a daily basis. The retiree does not understand why her benefits, acquired after a lifetime of work, remain inaccessible.
The administrative error at the origin of this blockage is confusing to say the least: this retiree living in a small town in Orne was recorded in the files as having died, an erroneous entry which resulted in the immediate cessation of all of her rights. “It was only after several calls that they finally (!) ended up telling me that mom had died!” explains to Ouest-France her daughter Brigitte, who is carrying out the procedures for her mother. This incorrect information was enough to automatically suspend the payment of her retirement as well as that of her husband’s survivor’s pension. What follows is a real obstacle course to prove that her mother is indeed “alive”. The latter finally obtained a regularization of her retirement pension, but everything did not return to normal so easily since she still has not received the survivor’s pension that she should have received.
So, what to do in the event of an administrative error? It is important to check your file with your pension fund and social organizations, to request official certificates of individual situation and, if necessary, to call on a mediator or legal advice to contest the decisions and obtain regularization. This type of blocking is not common, but it can happen to anyone due to a lack of updating or an entry error in administrative databases.
The case of this nonagenarian from Normandy illustrates how a simple administrative error can have serious consequences on the daily life of an elderly person, even when they have respected all their contribution obligations. He also recalls the importance of being well supported, of regularly monitoring your social rights and of not hesitating to contact the competent organizations as soon as services cease for no apparent reason.
