New measures will be necessary for pensions, according to the monitoring committee

“The message for this year is that (...) the deficits remain, and that, in application of the 2014 law, the committee is required to alert on this persistence, and to recommend that responses be provided,” indicates this small team of five experts placed alongside the Prime Minister, responsible for playing a monitoring role on the sustainability of the pension system.

In this report made public on Tuesday, the committee does not make strict recommendations on the remedies to be taken, but outlines the possibilities available to future governments.

On the resources side, "the only option" would be to increase the overall contribution rate, believes the committee, which however invites careful consideration of the overall effect on the economy of such a measure.

“We should ensure” that the increase in contributions “is as neutral as possible for economic activity and does not indirectly reduce the room for maneuver for other levies,” writes the committee.

To ensure balance, "it would be necessary, all things being equal, to increase the contribution rate by 0,5 to 0,8 points in the short term, and by 1,5 points in the longer term", specified the president. of the committee, Didier Blanchet, to the daily Les Echos.

The committee excludes in the short term increasing the legal age, since this is the lever that the controversial 2023 reform has just activated.

Nevertheless, he recommends starting today to think about "coupling" the legal age (64 years today) with the observed life expectancy, so as to be able to increase it again if the population lives Longer.

He also recommends “a review of the indexation rules” of pensions.

Generally speaking, it would be appropriate to "better align" the calculation of pension liquidation rights, and subsequent adjustments, to "observed or most likely developments in growth", indicates the report.