Paris (AFP)

The leader of La France insoumise Jean-Luc Mélenchon pleaded Wednesday in a meeting in Paris for a pension reform alternative to that of the government, based on state investment and the increase in wages to "improve the condition of people" .

Faced with "every man for himself with his little pile of points" advocated according to him by the government, Mr. Mélenchon gave, in front of nearly 400 people gathered at the Cabaret Sauvage, the main lines of his own pension reform project, including the spirit would be "all together".

It first set the legal retirement age at 60 - "it's the right age" - with 40 annual contributions. "Not a pension lower than the minimum wage, and the quarters in the RSA will be integrated" into the contributions, he added.

Thus, "we can live with dignity, and that is what matters, improving the condition of people," he said.

To finance this system, "we will increase contributions, and increase wages more than contributions, and you will not feel anything passing," promised the boss of LFI deputies.

For example, he argued, "increasing wages by 1% brings 2.5 billion euros into the fund".

Other financing inherent in the Insoumis program, investment by the State, "a development program through ecological planning, peasant agriculture and the jobs created to manufacture the thousands of machines necessary for non-nuclear energy".

According to him, the government wants conversely "a system based on greed and selfishness". By insisting on special diets, "they wanted to excite jealousy against each other".

With points retirement, "you know how much it costs you, but what you will be entitled to, you will not know," insisted Mr. Mélenchon.

"We need a society, not an addition of individuals: the world of selfishness is hell for everyone," he insisted.

Number 2 of LFI Adrien Quatennens had detailed other measures Wednesday morning in the National Assembly, such as taking into account for all the 10 best years for the calculation of retirement and "harmonization from the top" of the taking hardship into account, by extending it to other trades.

As a counterpoint to the 5% increase per child put in place by the government reform, his rebellious colleague MP Clémentine Autain advanced an annual increase of 500 euros per child. It would be allocated to women by default, and shared between the two parents if they took equal parental leave.

LFI also proposes to mobilize the Reserve Fund for Pensions, the Amortization Fund for Social Debt, and to remove the tax loopholes on supplementary pensions, according to LFI.

This counter-project was developed in collaboration with the militant collective "Our pensions" and the think tank "General interest".

In addition, the other left forces, from the PCF to EELV through the PS, found themselves in an intergroup working group in Parliament on Wednesday, with the objective for the next few days of a joint declaration setting out the points of agreement on pensions.

© 2019 AFP