Pension reform: date of birth, arduousness… Will you retire at 64?

Yanis Darras and Barthélémy Philippe 2:51 p.m., January 11, 2023

The government leaned a time for 65 years, finally, it will be 64 years.

Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne presented the pension reform on Tuesday, which, according to the executive, should make it possible to preserve the balance of the pay-as-you-go pension system.

Among the measures announced to keep a healthy pension system, the postponement of the legal retirement age to 64 by 2030, against 62 currently.

In fact, not all French people will be affected in the same way by this decline.

Progression of the reform, long career, arduousness... Europe 1 takes stock. 

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The French born in 1968 will be the first concerned

Currently the retirement age is set at 62 years.

If the reform comes into force, the legal age will be raised to two more years.

But this postponement will be done gradually.

Thus, the pension reform will apply to French people born in the second half of 1961. Therefore, each year will have three months more than the previous year.

For example, for a citizen born in October 1961, the retirement age will be shifted to 62 years and three months.

A Frenchman born in 1962 will have to work three more months and the system will continue to shift until the 1968 generation, which will be the first to officially work until the age of 64.

The contribution period will also increase, with the pension reform accelerating the timetable for the Touraine reform, enacted in 2014 but which has only extended the contribution period for French workers since 2020. Thus, from 2027, the contribution period will be 43 years or 172 quarters assessed.

In addition, the full retirement age, regardless of the number of quarters worked, does not change and remains fixed at 67 years.

Multiple exceptions 

But in fact, up to 40% of French people will not retire at age 64 each year.

Indeed, the government wants to preserve as much as possible French people with a long career.

"The long career system will be adapted so that no one who started working early is forced to work over 44," said the executive.

Thus, if you started working at 14 and you have validated at least five quarters before your 20th birthday, you can retire as soon as you are 58, six years before the legal age.

For those who have started working between the ages of 18 and 20, and subject to validating at least five quarters, the departure will be at 62. 

Same thing for the French with a so-called difficult job, in a situation of incapacity or incapacity.

All will be able to leave almost two years before the legal age.

Finally, on the side of public sector employees with a special scheme, the retirement age should also be lowered by two years and new entrants to the company will no longer benefit from these specific schemes, the government having acted on the pure and simple abolition of these latter.

The opposition in ambush

In total, the pension reform should bring "17.7 billion euros by 2030 to the pension funds", which is much more than the "13.5 billion euros" of deficit that the system would have known without reform, explained this Tuesday the Minister of Economy and Finance, Bruno Le Maire. 

But this reform will first have to be debated and voted on by Parliament, before actually coming into force.

If Elisabeth Borne says she is ready "to further evolve" her reform, advocating "dialogue", the left oppositions and the National Rally intend to put an end to the project.