French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said a contentious overhaul of the country’s pension system may not necessarily require raising the minimum retirement age to 65 from 62.
(Bloomberg) — French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said a contentious overhaul of the country’s pension system may not necessarily require raising the minimum retirement age to 65 from 62.
Consultations with worker and business representatives will continue for another week before the government finalizes a plan to be debated in parliament early February, Borne said on France Info radio.
“The plan to raise the retirement age to 65 is not a totem,” Borne said. “There are other solutions that could enable us to meet our objective of balancing of our pension system by 2030.”
Labor unions have so far rejected the plan that President Emmanuel Macron presented during his re-election campaign in May of last year. Even moderate unions say they will join mass protests and strikes if the government goes ahead with raising the retirement age, which they say would unfairly affect the least well-off.
Borne did not give details on other elements of a reform that could balance France’s pay-as-you go system, in which levies on workers finance payments to the retired. The maximum age for retiring without a reduction in pension rights will not be raised from 67 and contributions from workers won’t increase, she said.
“My priority is full employment and for our country to have a strong economy that creates jobs,” Borne said. “We don’t want to increase the burden of contributions, we don’t want to increase the cost of labor.”
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