Organisation of the system, Jean-Luc Mélenchon
Special pension schemes, points-based system: Rejects a points-based pension system
Direction of change: unchanged, compared with current law.
The lever. Architecture of the system: special pension schemes, merger of schemes, universal points-based or notional-account scheme. Direction rule: ↑ schemes more separate; ↓: more unified.
« Enfin, la retraite par points, c’est immoral. Moins il y a de gens dans une génération, plus il y a d’argent à se répartir. »1Translation by the editorsFinally, the points-based pension system is immoral. The fewer people there are in a generation, the more money there is to share out.
Words of Hadrien Clouet, LFI MP, La nuit des longues fourchettes (blog de Mélenchon, argumentaire de H. Clouet), 9 January 2025. Words of an associate of the candidate: they do not formally commit the candidate.
Link to the candidacy: Alert note reproduced by Jean-Luc Mélenchon on his blog, which asks readers to « diffuser l’argumentaire » [“spread the arguments”].
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Current law, sources and limits of the cost schedule
Current law. Since 1 September 2023 (Act of 14 April 2023, Art. 1), new recruits at the RATP, the IEG, the Banque de France, the CESE, and notaries' clerks and employees are affiliated to the general scheme: these special pension schemes are being phased out. Existing members remain in them. Other special pension schemes remain (SNCF closed since 2020, seafarers, mines, State workers…). The State contributes just under €8bn to balancing 17 special pension schemes and paid €45bn in 2023 to its civil servants' scheme. Agirc-Arrco already works on a points basis, but there is no universal points-based system (2019-2020 project abandoned).
Horizon. Very long-term effects, virtually nil in 2032 on a static basis.
Limits. Closing a scheme to new entrants yields almost nothing for decades. Montaigne 2022 costed the abolition of the special pension schemes at €5.3bn « à très long terme » [“in the very long term”] (2017 euros), with no effect in 2027. A points-based system is neutral by design: its cost depends on the parameters (value of the point, pivot age, solidarity provisions). It is classified as a rule change, costed only if the parameters are given. Moving civil servants into the general scheme raises the question of the accounting convention for the State scheme (« subvention d'équilibre », balancing subsidy), with no change to the general government balance.
- Sénat, L'essentiel PLFRSS 2023, article 1er, 2023-03-13: « L’article 1er propose la mise en extinction des principaux régimes spéciaux de retraites […] les personnes recrutées à partir du 1er septembre 2023 par les entreprises et institutions concernées seraient affiliées au régime général. À l’inverse, les personnes déjà affiliées à ces régimes spéciaux y seraient maintenues. »
- Cour des comptes, Situation financière et perspectives du système de retraites, 2025-02-20: « il participe à l’équilibre financier de 17 régimes spéciaux pour un peu moins de 8 Md€. D’autre part, il finance le régime de ses fonctionnaires civils et militaires au moyen d’une contribution de 45 Md€ en 2023. »
- Institut Montaigne 2022, fiche Macron 65 ans (archive), 2022-04: « La suppression des régimes spéciaux permettra de générer, à très long terme, de l’ordre de 5,3 Md€ d’économies supplémentaires (en € de 2017). Ces 5,3 Md€ ne sont donc pas pris en compte dans ce chiffrage. »
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.
- La nuit des longues fourchettes (blog de Mélenchon, argumentaire de H. Clouet), 9 January 2025. Words of Hadrien Clouet, LFI MP. Words of an associate of the candidate: they do not formally commit the candidate. Read the source (La nuit des longues fourchettes (blog de Mélenchon, argumentaire de H. Clouet)).
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