The delicate pension reform arrives at the National Assembly

Fighted in the street during a social conflict of unprecedented length this winter, the pension reform wanted by Emmanuel Macron arrives at the National Assembly on Monday. The deputies must start the discussion on the two bills which compose it. And it is a new battle which will be played with the examination of this highly sensitive project aiming to create a "universal system" of retirement by points and to remove the special schemes allowing certain categories of employees to benefit from their pension before the legal age of 62. All while ensuring the long-term financial balance of the system by encouraging the French to work longer - a point on which many oppositions are crystallized. We must "win the pension battle" , said Emmanuel Macron again last week, calling on the deputies of the majority to " sell this justice reform".

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The debates promise to be long and tense. Already, the special committee on the subject has failed to review the entire main part of the reform - a situation that had never happened in parliamentary history -, due to the obstruction of La France insoumise and of its 19,000 amendments to the text (out of 22,000 in total). It is therefore the initial version of the government's plan that will be examined by members of the House. The few amendments adopted will have to be put to the vote again. It was mainly a question of the future increase in teachers' salaries, a reduction in the contributions of the self-employed (a measure intended to respond to the discontent of lawyers) or even an increase in points for parents who raised disabled children.

But it is above all 41,000 new amendments (including 600 LREM and… 23,000 from La France insoumise) that will have to be studied, in a deleterious climate, right and left denouncing a “nebulous” and “gaping” project , with in particular around thirty scheduled prescriptions. Not to mention the questions of two LREM pillars of the finance committee, Émilie Cariou and Laurent Saint-Martin, expressed in a letter to the Prime Minister, regarding certain budgetary impacts of the reform.

MEPs will also have to integrate the proposals made last Thursday by Édouard Philippe during a meeting with the social partners in Matignon - such as the maintenance of acquired rights during transition periods, easier access to progressive retirement in the public and private or even a "real right to retraining" for employees working in a difficult job. On the other hand, on “the question of reparation” , that is to say the right to an early departure before 62 years for these employees, the government and the social partners did not agree, returning the subject to the financing conference which really begins its work on Tuesday.

Read also: Pension reform: the executive ready to soften the end of career of civil servants

Complicated schedule

This conference, which brings together around a table the employers and the union, must focus for a few weeks on the most sensitive subjects, such as the arduousness therefore, or the increase in the minimum contribution. "We are fighting for elements of justice to be included in this bill," said CFDT secretary general Laurent Berger in the JDD . But, even if the latter believes that "this is not the priority of the moment", this conference must above all propose by April an alternative to the pivotal age of 64 proposed by the executive - at which the CFDT is totally opposed - allowing balancing of accounts by 2027.

The government aimed to adopt the text at first reading in early March, before the municipal elections. A schedule that is difficult to maintain given the quantity of amendments tabled, which the majority do not rule out extending. After a second reading, the final green light is still expected "by the summer" .