Posted Apr 14, 2023, 7:16 PMUpdated on Apr 15, 2023 at 8:37 am
If he largely validated this Friday the pension reform, which the Head of State promulgated in the process, the Constitutional Council ruled that the measures targeted on the employment of seniors had no place in a project of the amending Social Security Financing Act (PLFR). The sentence is not a surprise. On the other hand, it cuts off the pension reform from an important component for the political balance of the government project.
The unions have constantly denounced a project that only new retirees bear the pressure via the increase from 62 to 64 years of the legal retirement age. According to them, it is up to companies to raise the employment rate of seniors, unanimously deemed too low.
An important component for balance
On the executive side, it was felt that the balance of the reform rested on the incentives to keep seniors in work while the country is below the European average for employment of 55-64 year olds with a rate of 56% in France once morest 60.5% on average.
Concretely, the two censored measures are the senior index, which the Council of State had already deemed legally fragile, and the senior employment contract, introduced by right-wing senators in the reform.
A financial text
As the bill is a financial text, the measures contained therein must have an impact on the Social Security accounts for 2023. This was not the case for the senior index, listed in article 2 of the reform, but the government chose to ignore it.
Built on the model of the gender equality index, this index was supposed to become compulsory this year for companies with more than 1,000 employees, a threshold lowered to 300 employees in 2024. There were no financial penalties, until to 1% of turnover, only in the event of non-publication.
Two specificities
Article 3 creating a senior employment contract, supposed to come into force on 1is September, was also censored by the Constitutional Council. This open-ended employment contract (CDI) to which the government was opposed but to which it had resigned to win the support of the Senate, was to concern only employees over 60 years of age.
It had two specificities. The first was the exemption from family contributions; the second the possibility for the employer to put an end to the contract as soon as the employee might profit from a pension with full rate whereas the setting with the retirement of office is authorized only from 70 years.
The press release published by Matignon in the wake of the Constitutional Council does not say what the executive intends to do with the two censored measures. While a labor bill is being prepared, a statement by the Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt, suggests that rather than taking them up as they are, the government might decide to take up the issue of the employment of seniors to try to resume dialogue with the unions.
➡️ The employment of seniors remains a priority for the @governmentFR.
We must, with the social partners and parliamentarians, find ways and means to support and improve the employment rate of employees aged over 50.
— Olivier Dussopt (@olivierdussopt) April 14, 2023
“The employment of seniors remains a priority for us, we will continue our discussions with the social partners on these points”, insists one at the Ministry of Labor.