As he celebrates his first month spent in Matignon this Saturday, October 5, 2024, the Prime Minister must weather the start of a political and social storm. For the moment, it is only a severe weather warning, but it could turn to force 9 and strong gales in the coming days or weeks if it is not taken. guard. Michel Barnier has therefore decided to lower the mainsail on his plan to postpone the increase in pensions. What has happened in recent hours to justify the red alert on rue Varenne? We explain…
Act I: pennies, pennies, looking for pennies
While the finance bill, for the year 2025, will be presented to the Council of Ministers on Thursday October 10, 2024, a copy has already been sent to the High Council of Public Finances. And here no surprise: the time must be to tighten the bolts in the face of a colossal financial debt – 3,228 billion euros – and a public deficit which should exceed 6% of national wealth. As the Prime Minister said and repeated before the deputies and senators last Tuesday, during his general policy declaration: “We are going to have to do well, to meet the expectations of the French, but with little. »
To try to meet this objective of recovering public finances – and reducing the public deficit to 5% of gross domestic product in 2025 – the government is planning, next year, an effort of around sixty billion euros. A hell of a challenge! Among the many savings avenues to be made, Michel Barnier plans to postpone from 1is January to 1is July 2025 the indexation of retirement pensions to inflation, by around 1.8%. Estimated gain: around four billion, according to accounts from the Ministry of Labor.
Act II: a painful volley of green woods
A mathematically interesting idea, but politically and socially very “challenging” to write colloquially. The reactions were not long in coming. Starting with that of Marine Le Pen (National Rally). On X (ex-Twitter), the boss of RN deputies indicated, Friday October 4, 2024, that “shifting the indexation of pensions means robbing our seniors of billions of euros of purchasing power. I will refuse this measure, all the more petty as it leaked the day after the Prime Minister’s general policy speech, silent on this maneuver already used by Mr. Hollande and Mr. Macron. And the former finalist in the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections added: “Every day, revelations confirm that we were right to warn of the ruin of public accounts by Macronie, with the complicity of the LR. The recovery of public accounts requires truth, courage and trust. Not blind and therefore unfair measures.” Close the ban!
On the side of the Republican Right, the political family of Michel Barnier, this idea of postponing the increase in pensions does not arouse much enthusiasm. As proof, this reaction from the LR deputy for Hauts-de-Seine, Jean-Didier Berger, at the microphone of BFMTV. This member of the finance committee of the National Assembly announces that his group has submitted, “on the government table”, a detailed list of fifty billion in potential savings to be made. The postponement of pension indexation does not appear at all, unlike measures on the state’s lifestyle, immigration or even assistance.
Act III: the file sent back to parliamentarians
Feeling the tide seriously turning, and fearing a bloodbath from the National Rally during the examination of an upcoming motion of censure, the Prime Minister therefore decided to make amends. A sort of break, during a trip to the Livestock Summit in Cournon-d’Auvergne (Puy-de-Dôme), Friday October 4, 2024.
“I understand that this measure, which we put in the budget, provokes and creates concerns, particularly for so many people who receive small pensions,” recognizes the head of government. As a fine tactician that he is, after half a century of diverse and varied political mandates, Michel Barnier therefore decides to pass the ball and the thorny issue back to the deputies…
“If in the parliamentary discussion which opens on the 2025 budget, there are new ideas or other ideas to find other means (savings)I am open. » A very clever way of doing things to reduce tension. This budgetary discussion in Parliament promises to be high risk for the Prime Minister and his ministerial team.
