The government will no longer have to fear the positions taken by the Retirement Orientation Council (COR). During the Council of Ministers on Tuesday, the economist Gilbert Cet was appointed president of the organization and thus replaces Pierre-Louis Bras, much criticized by the executive at the time of the pension reform. The government announced last week that it wanted to thank the former president, ensuring that it was “not a sanction” but “consistent timing”, after “nine years” of presidency.
Several unions had denounced an ouster linked to the positions taken by Pierre-Louis Bras during the debate on pension reform, which contradicted certain government forecasts and had triggered the ire of the majority.
The COR, which brings together 41 members – parliamentarians, representatives of employers and unions, members of major administrations and experts – is an expertise and consultation body attached to Matignon, but which works independently. It is responsible for “analyzing and monitoring the medium and long-term prospects of the French retirement system”.
Support for Macron and pension reform
Born in 1956, and holder of a doctorate in economics from Panthéon-Sorbonne University, Gilbert Ce teaches at the Neoma business school and the University of Aix-Marseille.
Former member of the Economic Analysis Council, he is deputy to the general director of studies and international relations of the Banque de France, and since 2017 president of the group of experts on the minimum wage, responsible for submitting a report to the government each year. He is also the author of several works relating to labor law and macroeconomic policies.
In April 2017, at the time of the presidential election, he signed with around forty other economists a column in support of Emmanuel Macron, published in The world. “We believe that Emmanuel Macron’s program is best able to lay the foundations for the new economic growth that our country needs. It is because it bets on work, youth, innovation, inclusion, investment and environmental transition,” wrote the authors of this column.
He has since spoken several times in the press, notably to support the pension reform which he, for example, judged, in The echoes in January, “fairly balanced” and able to “ensure the sustainability of the regime”.