Paris (AFP)

The government recognizes this: teachers could be among the losers of the pension reform if it is not accompanied by salary increases. In the absence of sufficient guarantees, the profession is preparing to mobilize massively on December 5th.

Almost all the unions have called for participation in the inter-professional strike movement, which promises to be very well attended in schools across the country and in the teaching world, worried about the future universal retirement system.

The Head of State himself acknowledged that teachers will be harmed if the transition to the new system does not come with other changes in their careers.

Indeed, the future reform will take into account in calculating pensions the entire career, against the last six months now. In compensation, pensions would include bonuses and allowances.

But "the average level of bonuses in the public service is 22%, the average level of premiums for teachers is 9%, that of the nursery school is 4%," said Friday the high- Pension Commissioner Jean-Paul Delevoye.

"Teachers are penalized if we apply the system without correction," he agreed.

"Because of the more limited amount of their allowance system, the level of pension for teachers would deteriorate very gradually and over generations compared to that of comparable bodies of the public service", also admitted Jean-Michel Blanquer, the Minister of Education, in a letter sent in November to the unions.

The FSU made its calculations: "For a colleague who would start in 2025 [expected date of entry into force of the reform], the pension decrease would be equivalent to 900 euros per month" compared to the current amounts, says Régis Metzger, co-secretary general of Snuipp, the first primary union.

The losses would be between 300 and 600 euros for teachers of schools currently in office, according to its simulations.

- "Contempt" -

Currently, a teacher receives an average of 2,600 euros gross in retirement (2,500 euros in the first degree, 2,850 euros in the second degree).

Received several times in the ministry with Jean-Paul Delevoye, the teachers unions have asked the government "a strong commitment" on the revaluation of wages.

However, at the end of the last meeting, no announcement of "hard and fast" measures was made, lamented the SE-Unsa, union considered reformist.

For the moment, the time is at the "diagnosis", one makes the point to the ministry, by engaging on no concrete scenario of revaluation. This second phase should begin in January, when the reform project has been finalized.

"The teachers felt already discredited, there is downright scorn," squeaks Regis Metzger. "While the staff are concerned about a deterioration of their working conditions, adds this reform that is worrying and is illegible: no one knows how much it will affect retirement in fine".

In an attempt to reassure the staff, Mr Blanquer stressed in his letter that the implementation of the new system would be accompanied by "a salary increase to guarantee the same level of retirement for teachers as for equivalent bodies of the public service".

"This commitment will be formalized in the bill creating the universal system," he promised.

This did not dispel the concerns of a profession that regularly feels abused and discredited.

In October, the remarks of Emmanuel Macron had also caused trouble in the ranks of teachers when he had said consider compensation for pay but had also mentioned a reflection on working time and vacation periods.

Not enough to make attractive a profession already struggling to recruit, warn unions.

As a backdrop to the pension reform, "there is a real subject of attractiveness of the profession," the ministry admits.

© 2019 AFP