On Monday afternoon, the RN warned: Michel Barnier could still escape censorship if he reversed the partial deindexation of pensions. But the Prime Minister, from the hemicycle, judged to have been “at the end of the dialogue” with all the political groups and took responsibility for the Social Security financing bill (PLFSS). A little earlier, he had made a final gesture towards the National Rally by committing not to reimburse medicines in 2025.
Insufficient for the formation of Marine Le Pen, who announced to file a motion of censure, just like LFI. The boss of the RN has already announced that her group would vote “unless there is a complete turnaround”, the motion of censure of her group and that of LFI. The PS and the ecologists announced that they would also vote for censorship. Arithmetically, it is therefore probable that one of the two motions of censure will be adopted and the Barnier government overthrown. Verdict Wednesday: motions of censure can only be examined 48 hours after their submission.
Towards a revaluation of 2.2% for all?
This therefore means that there would be no social security budget… nor any budget at all for 2025 immediately, with a government overthrown and without a clear majority in the Assembly, which would plunge France into a unknown situation. Among the very concrete measures planned in the PLFSS is the partial under-indexation of pensions, which was the subject of a parliamentary pass, and has caused a lot of talk, including among our readers. The text in fact provides for an increase of 0.8% for all retirees on January 1, i.e. half of the forecast inflation and slightly underestimated, and a second wave of revaluation of 0.8% on July 1 for only retirees under the minimum wage. What will happen on January 1 for the 17 million French retirees in the absence of a Social Security financing bill?
“Pensions would – as before – all be revalued at the rate of inflation, at the start of 2025, in the absence of PLFSS”, explains to Le Monde Dominique Libault, president of the High Council for the Financing of Social Protection. Indeed, this annual revaluation is not a boost decided by each government, it is included in the Social Security Code, in article L161-25. “The annual revaluation of the amounts of benefits whose provisions refer to this article is carried out on the basis of a coefficient equal to the evolution of the annual average of consumer prices, excluding tobacco, calculated on the last twelve monthly indices of these prices published by the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies the penultimate month preceding the date of revaluation of the services concerned”, explains the text. In the absence of a social security bill, it would therefore be the Social Security Code which would be applied.
Thus, if we look at inflation between November 2023 and October 2022, inflation excluding tobacco is 2.2%, report Moneyvox and Capital. This could therefore mean that pensions would all be increased on January 1 by 2.2%. Much better than 0.8% or 1.6% planned by the government. The cost for public finances would be substantial since the 3 to 4 billion savings planned with this partial under-indexation would disappear.
In view of the very complicated situation, both budgetarily and institutionally in the event of the overthrow of the Barnier government, it is however appropriate to remain cautious about the future revaluation of January pensions.
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