Two days of general strike and again violent clashes in the streets of Paris and the main French cities, with the return of yellow gilets and unfortunately also of the black bloc. The new escalation of anger in France (the unions have already announced another general strike for Tuesday 10 December) this time he has a specific goal: pension reform. Much desired by President Emmanuel Macron, who made it a workhorse in the electoral campaign, the new social security law, which should have been in theory already in 2019, has been postponed several times and is still struggling to take off. Certainly, for now, the only thing is that the review of the pension system desired by the government and entrusted to the High Commissioner for Welfare Jean-Paul Delevoye (who has been dealing with the social partners for a good 18 months) does not please the trade unions and voters.
However, it is much less clear how and when this reform will be effective: what is known is that, as was the case with the Loi Travail, the labor law inspired by Renziano's Jobs Act, the goal is also for pensions to simplify the legislation by abolishing the dozens of special cases (there are 42 in France). A points system, therefore, universal and the same for everyone, as several economists have hypothesized for many years, including Thomas Piketty, who today is one of Macron's most ardent protesters and who also took to the streets in Paris on Thursday. Unlike the other parties, which would have liked to either raise (the centre-right to 65) or lower (France Insoumise to 60) the retirement age, the leader of En Marche has always said that he would not have touched the basic age, which in France is set at 62 years.
However, the reform aims to make it more convenient to work a little more, perhaps up to the age of 63-64, thanks to the points system which could precisely allow you to accumulate more by staying in the office. As mentioned, all special regimes would be eliminated but without lowering the minimum pensions. Today, pensions in France are calculated starting from the average salary received by each worker, multiplied by a liquidation rate which varies according to the number of quarters of contributions paid. The points system provides instead of being able to leave work when you want when you reach 62 years of age, but having to evaluate whether the score achieved is satisfactory. To calculate it, the income counts but also other factors such as paternity/maternity, accidents, disabilities, etc.
The system, which also provides for the possibility of leaving the scene at 60 for so-called "long careers", and does not even touch survivor's pensions, would come into force only for those who enter the world of work after the approval of the law. This means that all the French people who have a job today would still retire under the old (and apparently more favorable) regime.
