Paris (AFP)

The "conference" responsible for bringing the pension system back to financial equilibrium by 2027 starts on Thursday with a tight schedule: State and social partners must find by the end of April an agreement to fill a deficit estimated in the long term at 12 billion euros per year.

A warm-up before the race for funds: the "conference on balance and the financing of pensions", announced on January 11 by the Prime Minister, will be officially launched at 3:00 pm at the Economic, Social and Environmental Council.

Édouard Philippe will solemnly "install" this body, accompanied by three members of his government - Agnès Buzyn (Solidarités), Laurent Pietraszewski (Retraites) and Olivier Dussopt (Civil Service) - then will speak at the end of this meeting.

As often, this first meeting will mainly aim to establish a calendar and a work method, before getting to the heart of the matter.

The objective is already engraved in the bill presented last week in the Council of Ministers: "to achieve financial balance for all basic pension plans in 2027".

Whatever the outcome of this "conference", it is already planned that the government will issue, within three months of the law being passed, an order "to restore this balance".

To this end, the text authorizes the executive to modify certain "parameters": legal age of departure, conditions for a full-rate pension (age, length of contribution, discount and surcharge), additional resources for old-age and use insurance from the Pension Reserve Fund.

But no question of touching the "purchasing power of retirees" or increasing the "cost of labor", warned the Prime Minister in advance.

A challenge, while the pension system is already in deficit and it "will widen in the coming years, to reach an amount of around 12 billion euros in 2027," he said in a letter addressed Tuesday to the head of LR deputies, Damien Abad.

- "Age measurement" -

Under these conditions, the employers see only one solution: "most of the savings will be provided by an age measure", predicted Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux Wednesday during a hearing at the Assembly.

Anticipating a possible failure of the negotiations, the President of Medef warned: "If we do not reach an agreement in three months, we count on the government to implement this age measure".

A position poles apart from that of the unions, which have just obtained the withdrawal of the "pivotal age" that the government intended to create in 2022, to raise it to 64 years in 2027, with a "bonus-malus" of 5% per year.

The CFDT, which had called for the organization of this "financing conference" in order to study alternative scenarios, for its part made new demands.

"We must first meet the requirements of social justice, it is a sine qua non condition to move forward," said its secretary general Laurent Berger Wednesday at a press conference.

The first French union, which has long supported the principle of a "universal pension system", is awaiting "concrete progress very quickly" in the consultations underway in various ministries (Labor, Health, Pensions, Civil Service).

"We will discuss after having had assurances in terms of hardship, progressive retirement, minimum contribution and transitions for public officials," said Berger.

Enough to spare the suspense a little, while the deputies must examine the bill in special committee on Monday, then in public session from February 17, for a first vote in early March.

Too early to integrate the proposals of the social partners, which could however come up during the debate in the Senate, the Prime Minister wishing "that they can be taken into account before the vote at second reading", scheduled for no later than early July.

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