MIGUEL MEDINA / AFP
For the first time since 2008, the French pension system is in surplus in 2021 and 2022, but this improvement will not last.
RETIREMENT – A provisional surplus. For the first time since the economic crisis of 2008, the pension system generates a surplus of 900 million euros in 2021, according to the annual report of the Retirement Orientation Council (COR) that AFP was able to consult this Monday, September 12. Unfortunately, this improvement will not last and the system of retirement should return to deficit in 2023.
After ten years in the red, the pension system will return to a surplus of 900 million euros in 2021, and the surplus will be even greater in 2022, with a surplus of 3.2 billion euros.
This positive trend is due to “the strong resumption of growth” last year, develops the report. The increase in income from dues made it possible to fill the “hole” in the pension system. Only, experts estimate that as of 2023, the overall balance of French pension schemes should once again “deteriorate significantly”.
A balanced system at best in 2030
And the next few years will be just as dark according to the report, the “the pension system would be in deficit on average over the next 25 years”. The COR is also counting on a return to equilibrium of the contribution/retirement pension balance in the best case scenario in the mid-2030s. On the other hand, in the worst-case scenario, we would have to wait until the 2070s.
Therefore, what should we think of the opportunity to reform the system, which is a campaign promise of Emmanuel Macron? Each camp will find arguments in this report. Because if the COR predicts that ” the pension system would be in deficit on average over the next 25 years “, he also emphasizes that his work ” do not validate the merits of speeches that put forward the idea of an uncontrolled dynamic of pension expenditure ».
The system remains “structurally in deficit”says in an interview with the newspaper Point the Minister of Labour, Olivier Dussopt, announcing that he will have “an exchange with the social partners on September 19 on the basis of (this) report”. But the unions are already unanimous on one point: if the government decided to change the legal retirement age in the fall during the discussion on the Social Security Budget, they would leave the negotiations immediately.
Under the Touraine reform passed under the Hollande five-year term, the contribution period increases gradually to reach 43 years for people born in 1973 or later.
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