They died before they retired, these journalists tell their story

A quarter of working people died before enjoying their retirement? The figure, brandished by Laurent Berger at the microphone of France Inter Wednesday, January 13, causes, a few minutes after its release, yet another ping-pong of arguments for and against the pension reform.

A whole debate is taking place to know if this figure is true, false, manipulated, exaggerated, or realistic. It all starts with a report. In 2018, INSEE compared the life expectancy of French people between the richest 5% and the poorest 5%. This document establishes that at 62, a quarter of the poorest French people have already died, compared to only 5% for the richest.

Problem, this study does not relate only to the workers but to all the men. In this category of 25% of deceased men, there are just as many workers as unemployed people, not concerned by the pension scheme.

Journalism without figures

It is finally after the repetitions of the opponents to the reform, the disputes of the majority on the veracity of this figure, the runaway of the media cells of fact-checking to disentangle the true from the false, that the debate ended in the limbo of the forgotten numbers.

Not for Rachid Laireche, journalist at Liberation, for whom behind these statistics, lives exist and deserve to be told. With a group of journalists, they decide to tell the life of those “hidden behind the statistics”. People met during the report, a neighbour, a neighborhood rumour…

The book “ Died before retirement presents twelve reports, produced by twelve journalists from different editorial staff, and which reveal twelve stories of singular lives. They agree on one thing: the men and women recounted died before they could benefit from their retirement.

With a commitment throughout the writing: to extract the figures to tell the staff. Without failing, according to the journalist, to tell the universal. In this new episode of “Minute Papillon! Rachid Laïreche describes these stories for us. We talk about committed journalism, slices of life, working conditions, and retirement dreams.

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