Denounced by the unions and even within the political groups of the government coalition, the postponement to July 1 of the indexation of basic pensions on inflation, confirmed in the finance bill presented this Thursday, October 10, should allow to save 4 billion euros.
It is a model of argumentative contortion, in support of a measure which promises to ignite the debates around the Social Security financing bill (PLFSS) for 2025. In the press kit devoted to this text , and released to the press this Thursday, October 10, the government confirms that the increase in the basic retirement pensions of nearly 17 million retirees will be postponed by six months in 2025, “from January 1 to July 1”, a measure which should save 4 billion euros. And explains it like this: “We want to preserve the purchasing power of retirees. Pensions will thus remain well indexed to inflation in 2025; following strong revaluations since 2022 and in a context of low inflation.”
If Bercy recalls that there were “strong revaluations since 2022” – for example, + 5.3% in 2024, for nearly 14 billion euros – he conveniently forgets to emphasize that this was due to equally high inflation (it has since fallen below 2 %), and because the law requires that pensions follow this increase in prices at the start of the year. Unless, of course, we modify the law, as is proposed in this PLFSS. For a retiree “who benefits from a retirement pension of 1,500 euros”, the loss of earnings “would be 15 euros per month for the six months from January to June”, recently put the president of the Retirement Orientation Council, Gilbert Cet, into perspective on France Info.
Barnier “open” to alternative ideas
Since the government announced its intention on October 2, the measure has united a very large part of the political spectrum against it. The left-wing oppositions (“This announcement is scandalous,” reacted Manuel Bompard, the coordinator of LFI) and the far right (“I will refuse this measure,” tweeted the head of the RN group in the Assembly, Marine Le Pen) are of course planning to step up to the plate, but within the political groups of the government coalition (the Republican Right, led by Laurent Wauquiez, and Ensemble pour la République , led by Gabriel Attal), voices are being raised against this use of an electoral base that has become crucial.
Employee unions also denounce a choice which risks penalizing retirees with the lowest pensions, even though the 2023 reform promised to support them. In the past, recent governments have already modified the rules for indexing pensions, but sometimes by operating a differentiated revaluation between the best-off and the worst-off pensioners. Faced with criticism, the Prime Minister, Michel Barnier, assured last week that he was “open”, during the budgetary discussion, “new ideas or other ideas to find other ways” allowing for similar savings.
The government also plans to generate 2.3 billion in additional revenue by increasing the employer contribution rate in the territorial and hospital public services by four points. Due in particular to a demographic imbalance, the CNRACL, the pension fund of these two sides of the public service could in fact be in deficit of 10 billion euros by 2030.
