Paris, Marseille, Nice… Retirees in the streets this Tuesday for “a fair revaluation” of their pensions

“No savings on the backs of retirees.” In the midst of a budget crisis, with a government on borrowed time, retirees will demonstrate this Tuesday throughout France, to demand “a fair revaluation of all pensions” on January 1st. Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Nice… In total, more than 125 rallies and demonstrations are planned in 94 departments, according to the unions. In the capital, a rally is planned from 1 p.m. near Matignon.

The nine retiree organizations (CGT, FO UCR, CFE-CGC Uniretraités, FSU, Solidaires, FGR Civil Service, LSR and Ensembles et solidaires) had called for this day of actions in mid-October, after the government's announcement the postponement of the revaluation of retirement pensions to July 1, 2025, instead of January 1, 2025. Finally, a compromise was then found between Prime Minister Michel Barnier and the strong man of the right, Laurent Wauquiez, on a two-stage revaluation: a first, up to half of inflation, effective January 1, 2025 for all basic pensions; then a second, in July 2025, only on small pensions.

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Censorship would benefit retirees

But not enough to calm the anger of retiree organizations, who maintained their call to demonstrate, condemning “this pitiful attempt to divide retirees”. “This measure, which is just a cautery on a wooden leg, would penalize all retirees since it would result in a loss of purchasing power for everyone over the first 6 months of the year”deplore the organizations, which demand “the indexation of all basic pensions on January 1, 2025” on inflation, as well as a “making up for losses suffered since 2017”. Or an increase in pensions «of 10%»specify the representatives of retirees in an open letter to deputies and senators.

This partial deindexation of pensions to inflation is precisely what could bring down the Barnier government. This Social Security budget measure is in fact one of the red lines of the National Rally (RN), which asked the executive to renounce it to escape censorship. After having already granted concessions to Marine Le Pen's party on taxes on electricity and state medical aid (AME) for undocumented immigrants, the government, however, refused to budge on this measure.

“We have reached the end of the dialogue”said Budget Minister Laurent Saint-Martin on RTL this Tuesday morning. A censure from the government, which would bring down the draft Social Security budget for 2025, would thus be good news for retirees, since pensions from basic schemes would in this case be increased by the amount of inflation from January 1.