Pensions, a never-ending reform
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While a final day of discussions at the pensions conclave has finally been scheduled for Monday, the new legal retirement age of 64 is expected to be confirmed amid widespread bitterness. In other words, it took eight years of heated discussions and union protests to satisfy no one.
On May 22, the Danish Parliament voted by a very large majority (81 MPs for, 21 against) to raise the retirement age to... 70. Since a 2006 law, Denmark has followed simple rules: the legal retirement age is indexed to life expectancy, and it is reviewed by MPs every five years. No dispute is therefore possible. In 2030, Danes will retire at 68, in 2035 at 69, and in 2040, it will be at 70. Is Denmark a country so different from ours? Not in terms of the fertility rate, which is barely lower – 1.46 children per woman, compared to 1.62 in our country. As for life expectancy, it is lower than in France, according to figures established by INED in 2023 : in France, people live on average eighty-three years, compared to only eighty-two in Denmark. This country has therefore decided not to burden its young and active population with retirement. Most major European countries have also raised their legal retirement age: Germany and Italy have set it at 67, and Spain will follow suit in 2027. Should we be happy about this for their citizens? Of course not. But our neighbors have made a choice that is both understandable—to limit the pressure on non-retirees—and inevitable, given their very low birth rate.
Meanwhile, France is unable to reach a consensus, as if the stakeholders were taking a perverse pleasure in a never-ending confrontation. The current debate was launched by Emmanuel Macron just after his first election: on September 14, 2017, he appointed a high commissioner for pension reform, Jean-Paul Delevoye, to create a new "points-based system," which could have evolved automatically over time.
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