Déchiffrer 2027

FREN

Pension amounts, Jean-Luc Mélenchon

Pension indexation: Index pensions to wages

Direction of change: increase, compared with current law.

The lever. Annual uprating of pensions: in line with inflation, with wages, freeze or under-indexation, depending on the amount of the pension. Direction rule: ↑ uprating more favourable than inflation.

« Indexer le montant des retraites sur les salaires »1

Translation by the editorsIndex the amount of pensions to wages

Encoding

ParameterCurrent lawProgrammeEffective date or horizon
Uprating of basic pensions above (or below) the current rule, cumulative points up to 20320 point3.5 point (assumption by the editors, see the costing)Full year 2032, €bn per year in 2025 euros, compared with the current rule (uprating in line with inflation)

Costing

Announced by the candidate

not announced

The programme does not cost this measure.

Published costings

none

No external costing of this position recorded to date.

Our calculation

−€8.2bn

per year for the public accounts, new spending, range −€10bn to −€7.3bn.

The calculation

  • Uprating of basic pensions above (or below) the current rule, cumulative points up to 2032: (3.5 − 0) ÷ 1 = 3.5 times “1 point of uprating of all basic pensions above inflation, cumulated over the upratings from 2028 to 2032 (permanent effect on the level of pensions); a one-point gap for one year costs the same”, each a cost of €2.35bn (2.08 to 2.98).

Assumption by the editors. Partial costing. Indexation rule costed with the common assumption (decision of 18 October 2026): basic pensions uprated like wages from 1 January 2028, i.e. 0.7 point a year more than inflation (real growth in earned income up to 2038 in the reference scenario of the COR (pensions advisory council), annual report of June 2026); five upratings from 2028 to 2032, 3.5 cumulative points. Reading key: one point of gap for one year costs about €2.35bn net (2.1 to 3.0). With the average gap from 2001 to 2023, 1.1 points (Institut Montaigne), the cost would be about €12.9bn net. Only basic pensions are costed: supplementary pensions, set by the social partners, do not fall under the law (partial costing). On 14 October 2026, Éric Coquerel announces that he will « indexer toutes les pensions, prestations sociales » [“index all pensions, social benefits”], with the 10% increase in APL, for €8bn in all (amount cited at the housing benefit position), without saying on which index.

Coefficient calculated by the editors from Commission des comptes de la Sécurité sociale, Les comptes de la Sécurité sociale, résultats 2025, prévisions 2026 et 2027 (octobre 2026), fiche 2.5, tableau 1: the position is marked as an assumption by the editors.

Current law, sources and limits of the cost schedule

Current law. Basic pensions are uprated on 1 January each year in line with observed inflation (annual average of prices excluding tobacco, Art. L. 161-25 CSS (Social Security Code)), and cannot fall in nominal terms. Uprating of +0.9% on 1 January 2026: the freeze planned in the PLFSS 2026 was not adopted; +1.7% forecast for 1 January 2027 (Commission des comptes de la Sécurité sociale (Social Security Accounts Committee), October 2026). Statutory benefits of the basic schemes: €297.9bn in 2025 (288.0 in 2024). Supplementary pensions (Agirc-Arrco) are managed by the social partners, with a sustainability coefficient of 0.4 points below inflation in the 2023-2027 agreement. The PLF and PLFSS 2027 under discussion (October 2026) mention €6bn of savings on basic pensions: this is not yet current law.

Horizon. Full year 2032, €bn per year in 2025 euros, compared with the current rule (uprating in line with inflation). Assumption common to all indexation rules (pensions, public sector pay index point, grants; decision of 18 October 2026): inflation of 1.75% per year (1.5 to 2.0%), uprating of 1.7% on 1 January 2027, first effect of a measure of the five-year term on 1 January 2028; the 2032 cost accumulates the five upratings from 2028 to 2032.

Limits. (1) Coefficient per point (calculation by the editors). Upper bound, gross: 1% of the statutory benefits of the basic schemes in 2025, €297.9bn (Commission des comptes de la Sécurité sociale, October 2026), i.e. €2.98bn; the €288bn « prévus pour 2025 » [“forecast for 2025”] by the Cour des comptes (Court of Audit) (€2.9bn per point) correspond to the actual level of 2024. Central value, net: the same total × the IPP's net/gross ratio for a freeze (5.2 / 6.6 = 0.79, once income tax, CSG and means-tested benefits are deducted), i.e. €2.35bn. Lower bound: the IPP freeze related to one point on its own scope, existing retirees only (5.2 / 2.5 = €2.08bn net). Under-indexation reads as a saving, with the same unit value. (2) Freeze recalculated. The IPP costs the 2027 freeze with 2.5% inflation (€6.6bn gross, 5.2 net); with the 1.7% uprating forecast for 2027 (CCSS, October 2026), the same freeze would be worth €4.5bn gross and 3.5 net (proportional calculation), and about €4.1bn net for a one-year freeze at 1.75% inflation, the common assumption. The options “full freeze in 2027” (€5.2bn) and “freeze above €2,000” (€2.8bn), costed at 2.5% inflation for a single year, were replaced on 18 October 2026 by parameters in cumulative points: a freeze of all pensions is costed on the general parameter (−1.75 points per year of freeze), a freeze above a threshold on the threshold parameter (−1.75 points per year of freeze). (3) Thresholds (IPP, note no. 129): restricting the freeze to pensions above the median reduces the net saving from €5.2bn to €3.7bn, at €2,000 to €2.8bn, at €3,000 to €1.2bn; hence, per point of inflation, €1.48bn (median) and €1.12bn (€2,000) on the IPP's scope (lower bounds), scaled to the 2025 total like the general parameter (central values), gross as upper bound (same ratio 6.6 / 5.2, which slightly underestimates the gross figure for high pensions, which are more heavily taxed). (4) Cumulation. A rule maintained from 2028 to 2032 is costed by the sum of the annual gaps, in points, applied to the 2025 total: compound interest (less than 0.1 point over five years) and the turnover of retirees are disregarded (pensions awarded after 2028 undergo only part of the gaps, which slightly overstates the amount; the lower bound, on the scope of existing retirees only, partly corrects this). The €2,000 threshold is assumed fixed in euros. (5) Indexation on wages: the annual gap used is that of real earned income in the reference scenario of the COR (pensions advisory council), 0.7 point per year until 2038 (annual report of June 2026), i.e. 3.5 cumulative points in 2032 and about €8.2bn net (7.3 to 10.4). The Institut Montaigne (2024 legislative elections) used 1.1 points (2001-2023 average): €3.4bn gross per uprating, 2.5 net, same order of magnitude per point. The option “indexation on wages” (a single uprating at 1.1 points) was withdrawn on 18 October 2026 in favour of the parameter. (6) Supplementary pensions (€401bn of basic and supplementary benefits in 2025) are not set by law. (7) Option “sustainability” (Cour des comptes): costed by the Cour des comptes as a 2026-2029 average on its own inflation trajectory, not recalculated.

How to read these amounts. These are static costs and revenues, with no feedback effect, over a full year: nothing on growth, employment or the revenue that economic activity would gain or lose. A higher net cost does not on its own make a worse policy, nor net savings a better one: each programme rests on an economic model (demand-led stimulus, lower compulsory levies, consolidation of the public accounts…) that the cost schedule does not settle. GDP itself measures a volume of activity, not well-being or the usefulness of what is produced. Economic models and feedback effects.

This lever in the method · Costing for Jean-Luc Mélenchon

  1. L’Avenir en commun (édition 2025), p. 38. Open the document at this page.

Contest this encoding (prefilled email; procedure and deadlines)