Has Jordan Bardella got confused about pensions? During the debate televised on TF1 This Tuesday evening, in view of the legislative elections, the president of the National Rally seemed in difficulty when explaining his party’s reform project, mentioning retirement at “66 years old” for some workers. A new change of tack by Marine Le Pen’s party on this highly inflammatory subject?
Jordan Bardella confused
Asked about the starting age of a person who started working at 24, the Matignon candidate mentioned, during the debate, “42 years of contributions, that is to say 66 years”. TF1 journalist Gilles Bouleau relaunches the candidate at Matignon: “66 years old? So later than Emmanuel Macron’s current reform? », he is surprised. “When you started working later, it is normal that you have to work later,” justifies the president of the RN, without initially contradicting the journalist’s imprecision. Because with the current reform, which requires 43 years to obtain a pension without reduction, a person who started working at 24 must wait until 67, and not 66, to obtain a full pension.
On X, the RN’s opponents did not wait for Bardella’s correction to rush into the breach. “Retirement at 60 on TikTok and at 66 IRL [« dans la vie réelle »] », mocked Yaël Braun-Pivet, the former Macronist president of the National Assembly. “They therefore want to repeal the unjust pension reform to make it… worse! », Also tackled Marine Tondelier, head of environmentalists.
What does the RN offer?
The National Rally has varied enormously in recent years on the subject of pensions. But on Tuesday, Jordan Bardella only recalled (with difficulty) the measure defended by the party since the 2022 presidential election. The RN first wishes to allow “those who started working before the age of 20 for 40 years to take their retirement at age 60,” as indicated in the presidential program. No wonder RN managers generally prefer to emphasize this category of “long careers” when they speak about retirements.
But for those who enter the job market later, the party has been defending a legal age of 62 since 2022 (compared to the current 64) and the need to contribute a maximum of 42 years to obtain a full pension. This objective has therefore not changed even if Jordan Bardella himself blurred the message by remaining evasive on this objective, as during his visit to Medef last Thursday: “Before giving a timetable, I first want to have knowledge of the budgetary margins that will be in my possession,” he indicated.
The left does not decide on annuities
But Jordan Bardella is not the only one to have raised the subject of retirements on Tuesday. In his project, the New Popular Front proposes to “immediately” repeal Emmanuel Macron’s reform project. This would therefore make it possible to lower the legal retirement age from 64 to 62 years… while initially maintaining the 43 annuities of the previous one. Touraine reform. The program of the united left also reaffirms “the common objective of the right to retire at 60”. During the debate, Emmanuel Bompard confirmed that “by 2027”, a law would be tabled to establish a legal age of 60.
But here again, the devil is in the details of annuities. The number of quarters needed to have a full pension does not appear in the program, because it divides the partners. “We (rebellious) think that we must return to 40 annuities, other Popular Front groups want to keep 43 annuities, we know that there are debates in the unions. So we are going to give ourselves time to make a major reform,” the rebellious outgoing MP admitted on BFMTV. Eric Coquerel. With such a project, a person entering the job market at 24 could therefore leave at 64 or 67 at full rate depending on the number of annuities ultimately chosen.
For his part during the debate, Gabriel Attal unsurprisingly indicated that he would maintain Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform and criticized his opponents’ project. “All of this is not credible. I say to the French: do not take the risk of having a pension system screwed up by reforms which would put it in great financial difficulty.”