Six years after explaining that it would be “hypocritical” to extend the retirement age, the President of the Republic tries to convince that the measures appearing in the bill presented on January 10 are Now “vital [s]” to save our distribution system.
by Claire Gatinois
Analysis. The archives are cruel. Emmanuel Macron is annoyed. When, guest of the program “L’Evènement”, for a great political interview on France 2, on October 26, 2022, journalist Caroline Roux reminds her of her 2017 words on pensions, the President of the Republic gets angry. “It was not the same world!” He defends himself. At the time, the Head of State said: “I do not propose to shift the retirement age, it is not fair. And the sacrificed, they are those around today 60 years “.
Since then, he explains, the COVVI-19, the debt generated by the “whatever it costs” and the effects of the war in Ukraine have changed the situation. Enough to justify, six years later, a reform advocating, initially, a retirement at 65 years old. Earth turns, it’s a fact.
In the same program, the Head of State explains that “there is only one way to do, if you are lucid, it is to work longer”. Although “open” to the requests of the social partners tending to soften his copy, there is “there is no working hypothesis where one can stop at 63 years on the horizon of this five-year term”, he points out . Three months later, however, this hypothesis is retained, with a gradual discrepancy from the retirement age of 63 years in 2027, to go up to 64 years in 2030, unless a clause Review at the end of the five-year period does not stop this momentum.
On April 24, 2019, during a press conference to try to appease the revolt of “yellow vests”, the head of state also argued that “as long as we did not solve the problem of Unemployment in our country, frankly, it would be quite hypocritical to shift legal age. (…) After 55 years, people tell you: “jobs are more good for you.” That’s the reality, This is the fight we are going. We must first win this fight before going to explain to people “my good friends work longer” “, he gets carried away in front of the journalists. Everything is logical, says today the Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt, when questioning him. This “fight” has since been won since, with a marked decline in the unemployment rate, he maintains.
Emmanuel Macron has installed, since 2019, a pension reform whose contours and justification have only evolved over time. During the presidential campaign of 2022, he set out to brandish a retirement at 65, depriving his right rival, Valérie Pécresse, of the mass argument of responsibility and courage. He did not hesitate to propose an unpopular reform in the name of the general interest.
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