How to fill the Social Security deficit? Making French people work seven hours a year without being paid would be one of the options on the table, the Minister of Labor and Employment confirmed this Tuesday. Questioned on TF1, Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet estimated that “these 7 hours should finance, in the Senate proposal, the autonomy branch” of Social Security.
But other avenues can be “looked at” to contribute to this financing, so that “the effort does not only focus on assets”. “This can concern people who work, but also retirees who can afford it,” said the minister. Clearly, “different taxes and contributions could be considered for retirees, depending on their pension level,” she continued.
Who could be affected by this “national effort to finance dependency and autonomy”? “This could be 40% of retirees,” judged Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet, while specifying that these modalities must be the subject of discussions with parliamentarians. “We must stop seeing retirees as a homogeneous group,” she insisted. “There is intergenerational solidarity, there can also be solidarity between seniors, for those who can afford it.”
In an interview with the Journal du Dimanche, the Minister of Labor, Health and Solidarity, Catherine Vautrin had already mentioned the idea of making the French work seven hours a year without being paid, in order to finance Social Security.
-This measure comes from an amendment to the draft Social Security budget for 2025, presented last November by the Senate Social Affairs Committee. She was finally removed from the project by Michel Barnier, before censorship from his government.
Criticized on the left, the proposal also created reluctance within the government camp. Michel Barnier himself said he was “very reserved about this idea”. In addition to finding it “complex to implement”, the former Prime Minister even expressed doubts about its benefits for the Social Security deficit.
