A real Prévert list: flight attendants, air traffic controllers, opera dancers, truck drivers, police, etc. These professions have already managed to keep a specific retirement age. As for the passage of the system by annuities to that by points, it will be for the French born in 1975. Although, not for everyone. Railway workers, for example, would not be affected until ten years later, namely those born in 1985. Finally, one profession managed to save its complementary fund: pilots.
Under pressure from unions and the streets - several thousand people and yellow vests paraded this Saturday in Paris -, the changes to the reform aimed at creating a universal retirement pension system, with a single pension and age management fund starting pivot at 64 for all, have multiplied in recent weeks.
On October 3, during the great debate in Rodez (Aveyron), Emmanuel Macron nonetheless displayed a firm desire not to create any exceptions. "If I start saying We keep a special diet for one , it will fall like dominoes," he replied when asked about the maintenance of a special regime for the police. Because behind you will tell me: you do for the police, therefore the gendarmes. Then, they will say to me: why not the nurses, the nursing assistants… ”Three months later, the domino game seems to have started.
The pressure does not weaken
And it may not be over. Because while the government must present its bill to the Council of Ministers on January 24, the pressure hardly weakens. Two days of national action (January 9 and 11), at the call of the CGT-FO-FSU-Solidaires-CFE-CGC intersyndicale will punctuate this week of resumption of negotiations with the social partners. Will the list of exceptions get longer? Are the 41 special plans about to win?
"It's complicated to say because the match is not over," said Bruno Chrétien, president of the Social Protection Institute. What is already clear is that these regimes have succeeded in imposing their specificity. All the project built during the presidential campaign without serious technical studies, all the work carried out then collapsed as soon as it was confronted with the realities on the ground.
But for the new secretary of state for pensions, Laurent Pietraszewski, these few exceptions are nothing compared to the mass of workers, employees and civil servants. And he assures him, "the promise of a universal scheme in which a euro contributed will give the same rights, will be kept".
Willing to "find a quick compromise", as Emmanuel Macron, Prime Minister Édouard Philippe asked him, will he be able to do without other "specificities" in the face, for example, of the liberal professions (lawyers, nurses, physiotherapists, accountants, etc.) who have been demonstrating since Friday to keep their fund independent? Above all, will he hold on one of the pillars of his reform, the famous pivotal age at 64 years which no union wants, including the reformists CFDT and Unsa that Edouard Philippe hopes to rally to his cause? The week is definitely high risk.
“It pays me” newsletter
The newsletter that improves your purchasing powerI'm registering
Your email address is collected by Le Parisien to allow you to receive our news and commercial offers. Find out more
Especially since the opposition is already denouncing the government's "retreats", like Christian Jacob, boss of the Republicans, for whom "there is an urgent need to withdraw this reform which no longer makes sense".
Before starting this delicate final stretch of negotiations, Matignon has just designed a new strategy. The Minister of Labor, Muriel Pénicaud, comes on the scene and each minister in his field (private sector, public service, hospital ...) must make proposals on the recognition of arduousness, the end of career, the minimum pension ... In short, find grain to grind to seduce the reformist unions, without giving the appearance of beating a retreat.
