Paris (AFP)
Emmanuel Macron renounces in advance his future retirement as a former president of the Republic, the Elysée told AFP on Saturday, confirming information from the newspaper Le Parisien.
The head of state, who celebrated his 42th birthday this Saturday, has also decided not to sit in the future on the Constitutional Council, whose former presidents are members by right for life, with compensation of 13,500 euros.
This decision comes in the midst of a strike against the pension reform wanted by the head of state who called from Abidjan on Saturday for a "truce" on the 17th day of mobilization.
But according to the Elysée Palace, "there is no desire to display", only "a desire for consistency" on the part of Emmanuel Macron. The presidency recalls that he had resigned from the senior civil service on the same day as he declared his candidacy for the presidential election in November 2016.
Emmanuel Macron will therefore be the first president to renounce the benefit of the law of April 3, 1955. Under this text, the former heads of state are paid for life, upon their departure from the Elysée Palace, a pension equivalent to the salary a State Councilor, or 6,220 euros gross monthly. This amount is not subject to any age condition, term of office or income limit.
"He decided that he would not apply this law in the short term in 2022, or in 2027 in the event of a second term," the Elysée told AFP. Instead, "a new system will be created as part of the future universal points scheme" for the pensions of heads of state.
According to the Elysee Palace, consistency means that the 1955 law will no longer apply to any president in the future.
The decision not to sit on the Constitutional Council also comes from a certain coherence since the measure appears in the draft constitutional reform which is still waiting to see the light of day.
Of the two predecessors of Mr. Macron, François Hollande has renounced himself to sit there while Nicolas Sarkozy resigned from the Constitutional Council in 2013 following the invalidation by this body of his campaign accounts for the 2012 presidential election .
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