Jean-Yves Archer is an economist, member of the SEP (Society of Political Economy) and former member of the ENA.
The parliamentary debates do not reflect a constructive atmosphere and the question of pensions is mistreated textually as much as badly treated in substance.
Personalities, as opposed and complementary as the esteemed Alain Peyrefitte or Charles Pasqua considered that the resolution of complicated public issues requires real work and a real quest for a good dose of consensus.
On these two prerequisites, President Macron's team failed.
Worse, it is sinking before our eyes and will only owe its legislative salvation by means of baroque constitutional tools.
Baroque because the sedimentation of the provisions of article 47.1 and most likely the famous 49.3 pushes to the extreme what lawyers call rationalized parliamentarism.
In this respect, and in the current state of my work, I consider that a partial censorship of the text by the Constitutional Council on the grounds of the repeated presence of completely foreign riders at the very heart of a PLFSS, even if it were corrective, is not to be excluded from the field of possibilities.
For some, it is the mortgage resulting from a possible government of judges.
For others, it is an assumption arising from the respectable work of the Elders.
Clearly the demographic shock and the lengthening of life (therefore the increase in the time pensions have to serve) are challenges for France.
Jean-Yves Archer
A badly put together text, uncertain as to its jurisdictional destiny and distorted by dint of pseudo-arrangements on the part of an attentive Prime Minister who wants to avoid the heavy symbolic weight of the use of 49.3 which cannot calm the street.
It happens that the game seems won in Parliament while its fate is negatively sealed in the street.
Let us remember here the fate of the infamous CPE dear to Dominique de Villepin.
The economic tensions generated by inflation and other rough subjects can induce a coagulation even after the promulgation of the law on pensions.
Law in the making which challenges the economist for at least a real rocky outcrop.
Indeed, it appears from the calculations – from various parties – that the net balance of savings is very likely to be less than 12 billion euros by 2030. As I already wrote more than a month ago , a saving of 10 to 15 billion euros represents only less than ten percent of our annual budget deficit.
Yes, our annual public expenditure is more than 500 billion and the voted deficit (PLF 2023) is 155 billion euros before the additional 40 billion of the post PLF tariff shield.
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Clearly the demographic shock and the lengthening of life (therefore the increase in the time pensions have to serve) are challenges for France.
Just as clearly, sociologists attest that the situation is anxiety-provoking.
Each generation resents the one before or the one after.
Retirees would cost too much, working people would not pay enough contributions and young people would be struck down by the right to laziness so dear to the unpredictable and highly visible MP in the person of Sandrine Rousseau.
Halfway through this forum, we are therefore collectively faced with a poorly constructed text, with an uncertain future and largely rejected by public opinion.
France needs a reform of its pension system that is finally credible.
So who avoids putting the work back on the job, no offense to the deputies who are campaigning for a review clause in 2027.
First anchor point, it is wise to introduce an ounce of capitalization in the system.
This exists in the public sector (via the RAFPT Additional Retirement of the Public Service or the Préfon) and no one complains about it or pulls out anti pension fund banners.
None except the dogmatic Lionel Jospin when he was at Matignon.
If our country had adopted the proposals of MP Jean-Pierre Thomas during the Balladur years, the present equation would be less complex.
France has an administration that misunderstands the social body and plunges into the delights of the macro-economy to the detriment of coherent and fair solutions.
Jean-Yves Archer
However, an essential clarification must be added.
I consider that the dose of capitalization must be engaged with the adoption of a system of pensions by points.
Let us remember, hic et nunc, that fewer French people opposed this solution (reform abandoned from the first five-year Macron term) than the current reform project.
In short, President Macron has been re-elected but in terms of retirement the most powerful student in France is doubling and History risks judging this incredible situation harshly.
If the second anchor point is indeed the adoption of a point system, it takes – transition required towards the third point – time and method to develop a migration, a moult should I write, to slide from more than 42 funds to less than 5 funds bringing together employees, the self-employed and public plans.
If the reasoning took place in stocks, things would be manageable.
However, everything related to pensions must be understood in flux.
A pension reform is comparable to the construction of a hydroelectric unit which supposes diverting the river during the construction of the work.
This is a real point of complexity which, for example, leads to the whimsical notion of the grandfather clause.
We gesticulate for lack of finding a social compromise that the economist Bernard Vivier, of the Higher Institute of Labor, calls for with care and perseverance.
Last anchor point, a simple path deserves to be designed.
Retirement at age 60 for manual workers (occupational nomenclature), except those who have suffered occupational diseases.
And retirement at age 65 on a principal basis for other professions.
France has an administration that misunderstands the social body and plunges into the delights of the macro-economy to the detriment of coherent and fair solutions.
And during the barnum, the public debt continues to grow.
