Paris (AFP)

The President of the National Assembly Richard Ferrand attacked those who "contribute to hysterize the debate" on pension reform, saying that finding a compromise is "not insurmountable".

"We are not here to wage a war but to create justice. The challenge now is to find a compromise," he said in the face of the multiplication of political and union critics before the resumption of the Tuesday consultation on pensions.

Richard Ferrand defends a "just" government project which "corrects real inequalities" towards women, the unemployed, chopped careers, farmers, artisans.

He judges "harmful for our democracy, our social democracy, certain words and attitudes of trade unionists as of policies which contribute to hysterize the debate", ensuring that "we are not in a war of trenches".

According to him, "the government and these trade union organizations must reconcile their positions in order to succeed, in mutual understanding, without prerequisites or red lines".

"It is up to the negotiators to find ways of bringing them together by exiting the postures. With a little good faith, this does not seem insurmountable to me," he added.

For their part, around twenty deputies, including elected LREM Jean-François Cesarini, Matthieu Orphelin, Delphine Bagarry or Paula Forteza, ask, in an open letter to Prime Minister Edouard Philippe and his government, to vary the age of balance according to the arduousness.

"The pension reform must be a societal reform and not a budgetary reform. It is necessary and fair because it reduces inequalities and removes injustices", they write.

According to them, "the end of the special regimes does not signify the end of the differences between people" because "arrived at 60 years, a framework can hope to live until 75 years in good health, against 65 years for a worker".

They should therefore, according to them, "lay down the principle that the duration of contributions be modulated according to only two criteria: daily risk and hardship, measured in terms of life expectancy in good health".

Regarding financing, they propose to play on the rate of solidarity contribution on income, with for example "an increase in the rate of 2.8% on income above 10,000 euros / month". "The idea is to activate an annual revaluation by tranches, without touching the revaluation at the level of inflation for modest pensions".

Another avenue: "the significant reserves of the complementary schemes could be used to make up for any deficits linked to the transitional period between the two systems".

© 2020 AFP