Paris (AFP)

The president of the region Hauts-de-France, Xavier Bertrand, said Sunday that if the government does not have the courage to announce Wednesday a lengthening of the age of departure to 64 then 65 years, the pension reform does not can not be right.

"I tell you very clearly, and the government is not, in 2030, if you do not have 2 more years of activity, we will not be able to pay everyone's pensions, the pensions will inevitably fall and I do not want it, "warned BFMTV the former Sarkozyist minister, who left LR in 2017.

"Our system today, it needs justice and if you want justice, it takes courage," he insisted, denouncing once again the "amateur method" of the executive.

"I prefer to have the courage to say: it is 64 years in progress in 2030, because I think that in the long term it will take in the next decade certainly go up to 65", he Explain.

"I know that by saying that, some will not accept, but there must be differences, especially on the issue of women when they have children," said the president of the Hauts-de-France, which is loaned the ambition to be a presidential candidate of 2022.

"Two more years of activity, it gives you real margins to guarantee everyone, including those who are in retirement today, 1000 euros minimum pension," he added, citing also measures of justice for the "professions which correspond to the sovereign functions of the State, the policemen, the gendarmes", etc.

"I argue for it to be 65 years," also pleaded on Cnews and Europe 1 MP LR Eric Woerth for whom "the balance of the pension system guarantees the payment of pensions".

"This does not mean 65 years Monday, it means that we must enlighten the French on the next 10 or 15 years," added the chairman of the Finance Committee of the National Assembly.

The executive is under pressure after a massive mobilization in the street Thursday (more than 800,000 protesters according to the Ministry of the Interior), a new call for a big day of strikes and demonstrations Tuesday, and while the RATP and SNCF traffic remains very small.

Bertrand also reiterated his proposal to set up a pension simulator "for every French" while "no one no longer trusts anyone".

"There is no government simulator validated by the trade unions, the justice of the peace, it would be this simulator," he argued.

© 2019 AFP