It was to be THE greatest social transformation since the post-war period. In any case, that is how the government presented it. But the pension reform, which caused two months of strikes, like other projects, came to a halt because of the health crisis linked to the coronavirus epidemic. And now difficult to see it emerge from government boxes.
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"I decided that all the current reforms would be suspended, starting with the pension reform," said Emmanuel Macron in mid-March, at the start of confinement. And in fact, for almost three months, forgotten the universal point system, forgotten the debate around the pivotal age, forgotten the funding conference that had been launched by Edouard Philippe.
There is still a secretary of state for pension reform, Laurent Pietrazewski, but we no longer hear him on the subject. It must be said that, since mid-April, he has been allocated a second portfolio which occupies him much more in these times: that of Secretary of State for the protection of the health of employees against the epidemic from Covid-19.
A stake in the future presidential election
In the ranks of the majority, everyone agrees: relaunching the reform where it stopped - in other words in its version adopted in early March in the Assembly via 49.3 -, it no longer makes sense today hui. The establishment of a universal system will at best be one of the challenges of the future presidential election.
Nevertheless, several walking MPs do not want anything to happen by then. Cendra Motin, rapporteur for the organic bill, thus considers that certain advances in the text - the minimum pension of 1,000 euros or the new survivor's pension scheme - must materialize without delay, especially in the context of the crisis which makes it even more necessary the protection of precarious people. But then in what form and when? That's another story.