The National Assembly voted unanimously on Thursday for an LR bill allowing to raise, from 2026, the pensions of self-employed farmers, by modifying the method of calculating their pension. The text provides “to extend to non-salaried agricultural workers”, in particular farm managers and “collaborating spouses”, “the calculation of the basic pension on the only twenty-five best years”, and no longer on the their entire career.
Retired farm managers receive an average of 1,079 euros gross for a full career (excluding reversion), according to elements of the Mutuelle sociale agricole (MSA). “580 euros gross is the pension gap observed each month between a retired farmer and a retired employee”, underlined the rapporteur of the text, the LR deputy from Aisne Julien Dive, at the opening of the debates.
“Admission of failure of our old-age insurance system”
It is a “terrible admission of failure of our old-age insurance system” for a profession with “restrictive working conditions” with “two thirds of farmers who do not go on vacation for more than three consecutive days a year”, a he added. To have the text adopted, rejected by very little in committee, Julien Dive had introduced an amendment moving back to January 2026, and no longer 2024, the gradual entry into force of this measure. This is to “give the Mutualité sociale agricole time” to adapt to the new method of calculation.
Labor Minister Olivier Dussopt said he was in favor of the bill thus amended, seeing it as “a republican compromise”. The macronists, who advocate consultation and an outstretched hand, could hardly reject all the texts of a potential ally.
On this consensual subject, two laws called Chassaigne 1 and 2 had already been passed unanimously: in 2020 a first text had raised the pensions of former farm managers to a minimum level of 85% of the net minimum wage, and a second had increased the small pensions of collaborating spouses of farmers in 2021.
“Second Zone”
In the hemicycle, André Chassaigne, president of the communist group, supported Julien Dive’s text: “We will raise our hands or even our fists to vote for it”, he said. From LFI to RN, all elected officials welcomed the measure and the “co-construction” in favor of an “essential” profession, even if some deplored the postponement from 2024 to 2026. Adopted at first reading, the text will be transmitted to the Senate, with a right-wing majority. The subject is crucial for the attractiveness of the profession, insisted Julien Dive, while one in two farmers will reach retirement age in 2030.
According to Luc Smessaert, vice-president of the FNSEA in charge of pensions, farmers were considered “second-class” pensioners because historically, “those who retired had a garden, even the right to subsistence plots” , in addition to rents for their land, or the fruit of the sale of their farm.
In addition, “on the reconstitution of careers, the MSA realizes that we are more and more to be polypensioners, sometimes with contributions in three funds”, he also explained to AFP before the session. At 48 hours from the first round of the election for the presidency of LR, this day dedicated to the texts of the right-wing group in the hemicycle also takes a political turn internally. Éric Ciotti, who is a candidate for the head of the party, is preparing to defend, with little chance of success, a bill calling for the “creation of a court specializing in the expulsion of foreign offenders”.
“Congress is worth the demagoguery”
Also a candidate, Aurélien Pradié will bring a proposal for a court specializing in domestic violence, inspired by Spain. None of these texts was adopted by the Law Commission. But the meeting will be an opportunity for the two deputies-candidates to establish their credibility on subjects that are markers of their conception of the right.
The left opposition had not failed, in committee, to mock this telescoping of calendars. “Congress is well worth demagogy,” Andy Kerbrat (LFI) quipped. Just before lunch, the Assembly rejected a text by LR Mansour Kamardine (Mayotte) aimed at “easing the conditions for the expulsion of foreigners who constitute a serious threat to public order”.