At the end of January, President Emmanuel Macron confirmed his intention to develop a framework law for reforming the French pensions system. A bill that was initially expected in spring should be presented at the end of the year, the aim being to finalize the reform by summer 2019 and, so far as possible, establish a single system in place of the 40 or so existing schemes. There is no doubt about the need to reform the current system, a point which has been agreed for several decades, but that need is crystallizing the debate, as has been shown by the reforms undertaken or attempted by previous governments.
In this context, it is a useful exercise to take a glance in the rear-view mirror and recall why and how the French pension system developed: under what conditions was it introduced and what choices were made at the time about pension allocation? This is what Arnauld d’Yvoire proposes here, going on to examine the “period of reforms”, from the (slow) realization of the problems posed by demographic and socio-economic change in France to the first reforms of the system begun in 1993. Lastly, d’Yvoire takes stock of the (“uncertainly balanced”) system at the end of these various reform attempts; he reminds us of the three main pension-scheme models still operative in France and their future prospects. This is, as the new debate begins, a very instructive presentation, which also demonstrates the scope of the task facing the government.
