On 11 December amid widespread social unrest protesting the government’s prospective pension reforms inter alia, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, in a much anticipated address, detailed the principal measures of his government’s project to create a universal points-based pension system. The Prime Minister defended the principle of universality, which in this situation means an end to the forty-two distinct pension schemes currently operating in France as being the way to “better and more sustainable social protection that responds more to the demographic characteristics of each occupational profession and that will enable greater fluidity across both careers and statuses,” and with a view to ‘more powerful professional mobility’. Trade unions were quick to respond. The CGT, which opposes the pension reform, has called for stronger strike action. The CFDT, which until now had stayed away from the protests since it supported a system based on the principle of universality, has however reacted harshly to the introduction of the fulcrum age (of 64 in 2027) by way of a bonus-malus system.*
The ‘pay-as-you-go’ system will be kept but will be converted into a points-based system where ‘every hour worked delivers pensions rights,’ rather than the current system whereby one must accumulate at least 150 hours per quarter-year period in order to release pensions rights.
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