Gilbert Cet, the man who wants to tell the whole truth about the financial state of our retirement system

Barthélémy Philippe / Photo credits: JOEL SAGET / AFP 8:02 a.m., April 5, 2024

While its publication is scheduled for June 13, the annual report of the Pension Orientation Council is already eagerly awaited. This Thursday, the new president of the institution Gilbert Cet invited the members of the Council for a preparatory meeting. The opportunity to present your objectives.

This is an important document. And for good reason, it gives perspectives on the evolution and financial projections of the pay-as-you-go pension system for the next 50 years. This year, the method should change: last year, in the midst of reform, the former president of the Pension Orientation Council (COR) Pierre-Louis Bras annoyed the executive by asserting that retirement spending was not slipping not.

The multiplicity of macroeconomic hypotheses taken into account in the document added to the confusion by giving food for thought to both supporters and opponents of the reform. It was bad for him since he was dismissed a few months later to be replaced by the economist Gilbert Cet, often described as close to power. Even if he proclaims his independence, the former president of the group of experts on the minimum wage has in fact called for Macron to vote in the past.

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The specter of a new explosive reform

In any case, he is not afraid. Gilbert This has the firm intention of dusting off the COR's annual report, even if it means offending the members of the institution. And first and foremost, the employee unions. The next report should therefore present a single reference scenario. Rather than 1%, the projections will be based on a more realistic productivity growth assumption of 0.7%.

A lower level of growth means fewer contributions to the pension system and a larger potential deficit. Deficit to which the president of the COR would like to add the massive subsidies that the State pays to balance the regime of civil servants.

“Until now, the COR report looked like a Spanish inn”

A strategy welcomed by the economist of the liberal Molinari Institute, Nicolas Marques. "Gilbert This wants to be transparent about pensions and that is entirely commendable. Until now, the COR report looked like a Spanish inn, there were elements for those who consider that everything is fine because the Council did not take into account the slippage in civil servants' pensions. Most of the pension deficits are in the public sector because the State does not have a pension fund and it is its budget which bears the related costs to civil servants’ pensions,” he says.

Problem: an alarmist report could highlight the fact that a new reform is quickly necessary while the last one triggered a real social explosion, which lasted almost six months.