Laurent Wauquiez, president of the Republican Right group (ex-LR) in the Assembly, assured Monday that he had found a compromise with the government so that “all pensions” would be increased by “half the inflation” from January 1 , with a second catch-up for the smallest six months later.
Among its savings avenues for 2025, the government had proposed as part of the examination of its Social Security financing bill to postpone by six months (from January 1 to July 1) the indexation of pensions on inflation to save around four billion euros. A measure responded to and understood by the supporters of the Barnier coalition in the Assembly.
“There will be a revaluation of pensions from January 1 for all pensions. It will be approximately half of inflation,” declared Laurent Wauquiez on TF1 news.
“On July 1, there will be a second increase, this time for the most modest pensions” to “fully protect them from inflation,” he continued, specifying that only those “below the minimum wage ” would benefit from this second measure.
“The Prime Minister is open to compromise. They discussed this subject with Laurent Wauquiez and he will have the opportunity to give details soon,” the head of government's entourage told AFP.
An amendment to this effect should be tabled during the debates on the Social Security budget in the Senate, said an LR parliamentary source.
Laurent Wauquiez immediately quantified the benefits of the measure.
“For a retired caregiver, who receives 1,000 euros of pension per month […] it will represent a gain over the year of 200 euros”, he said, recognizing “modest amounts”. But “for someone who has a small pension that counts”, he justified.
To finance this revaluation, which according to him would cost “between 500 million and 1 billion” euros, the former president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region intends to seek “1 billion” in the rationalization of the “administrative bureaucracy”, in particular by merging certain organizations such as “France Stratégie”, “the High Commission for Planning”, “France 2030”, and “the Center for Prospective Studies”.
As the Social Security budget could not be examined in the time allotted to the Assembly, it was transmitted to the Senate, which examined it from Wednesday in committee, then in the hemicycle from November 18 to 23.
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