A special Council of Ministers took place this Thursday, October 23. The letter of amendment to the Social Security financing bill (PLFSS), already examined in the Council of State, was presented this Thursday before the ministers, the Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, and the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, who chaired this council by videoconference from Brussels.
This letter plans to include in the PLFSS the suspension of the pension reform announced by Sébastien Lecornu during his general policy declaration on October 14. It details the cost of this measure. The suspension of the 2023 reform should cost 100 million euros in 2026 And 1.4 billion euros in 2027according to this letter consulted by AFP.
Supplementary health insurance and retirees put to work
The government had initially put forward a higher cost: 400 million euros from 2026 and 1.8 billion in 2027. But as specified by the Prime Minister’s office “this suspension obviously has a cost and (…) this must be compensated”. Thus, the amending letter provides for the contribution of complementary health insurance and retirees to finance this suspension of the reform. The contribution rate of complementary organizations, namely mutual societies and health insurance, should increase from 2.05 to 2.25% in 2026.
As for retirees, the finance bill already provides for the freezing of retirement pensions in 2026 by 0.4 points. The amending letter goes further and proposes an under-indexation of pensions of 0.9 points in 2027. Note that in 2027, the government is currently counting on inflation of 1.75%. The under-indexation of pensions should therefore weigh heavily on the purchasing power of retirees.
These measures will be examined from Monday October 27, the date of the start of the examination of the budgetary texts by the deputies. If the measure is adopted, the pension reform will be suspended until January 1, 2028, i.e. after the presidential election of 2027. In this way, the generation born in 1964 will retire at 62 years and 9 months instead of 63 years. The increase in the contribution period will also be suspended at 170 quarters
