Port-Bouët (Ivory Coast) (AFP)
Emmanuel Macron made a brief allusion to the retirement file on Friday when addressing a thousand French soldiers in Côte d'Ivoire, and again stressed that the soldiers were receiving a pension, thus specifying that they were not concerned by the planned reform.
"When you are in the military you do not touch retirement, you have a pension. It is different," declared the head of state during a speech for the Christmas troops in the Port-Bouët camp. shortly after arriving in Ivory Coast.
By repeating remarks he had already made when presenting his wishes to the armies in Toulouse in January, Emmanuel Macron sent "a message of reassurance to respond to a latent concern among the military", according to his entourage.
Prime Minister Edouard Philippe affirmed on December 11 that the military, like the police or the firefighters, would keep the benefit of age exemptions on retirement, because they are "exposed to dangerous functions within the framework of royal missions ".
© 2019 AFP