Pensions: by how much will they increase in 2025 if the motion of censure is adopted?

The adoption of a motion of censure on Wednesday, December 4, would bring down the current government as well as the Social Security budget for 2025. Good news for retirees.

Capital Video: Pensions: how much will they increase in 2025 if the motion of censure is adopted?

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Retirees could be the big winners from the political crisis France is going through. While the Social Security financing bill (PLFSS) for 2025 provides in article 23 for a partial deindexation of pensions on January 1, Michel Barnier’s use of article 49-3 of the Constitution to have the text adopted without a vote has changed the situation. The examination of two motions of censure – tabled by the New Popular Front (NFP) for the first, by the National Rally (RN) and the Union of Democrats for the Republic (UDR) for the other – debated Wednesday December 4 in the National Assembly will in fact seal the fate of the government, the Social Security budget… and therefore the increase in pensions. “The adoption of a motion of censure would overthrow the government and result in the rejection of the text of the PLFSS for which the government has taken responsibility, and therefore of the provisions modifying the indexation of pensions”confirms the National Assembly to Capital.

As a reminder, following the parliamentary debates and the adoption of the PLFSS by the joint committee (CMP), elected officials validated a deindexation of pensions from January 1, 2025. On this date, the basic pensions of around 17 million retirees must be increased by only 0.8%. An increase completed on July 1, 2025 by a new increase of 0.8% with a catch-up over the first six months of the year, but only for retirees receiving less than 1,500 euros gross per month.

An increase in basic pensions based on inflation

A measure which must result in a loss of earnings significant for the target groups, for example 20 euros for a former employee with a pension of 2,800 euros net per month… and some 3.5 billion euros in savings for the State coffers. What the two motions of censure filed do not fail to point out, the RN evoking a “red line” when the NFP rebels against a “taxation of retirees through the partial and deferred deindexation of retirement pensions”.

But what would be the increase in pensions on January 1st in the event of government censorship? For economist and public finance specialist François Ecalle, it’s simple: “There is no Social Security financing law. But the funds continue to pay social benefits by applying current legislation.” And the Social Security Code clearly stipulates that pensions will be revalued on January 1, 2025 based on the annual change in consumer prices excluding tobacco over the period November 2023-October 2024 compared to the same period a year earlier. A calculation formula which should result in an increase in basic pensions of 2.2% in 2025.