The Minister of Economy and Finance, Bruno Le Maire, stated that the possibility of more moderate indexing of the pensions of the wealthiest retirees should be considered as a contribution to national recovery.
These statements were made by Le Maire on the Bluesky network and cited by the Spanish agency EFE. He was responding to criticism from Thierry Breton, former European Commissioner and predecessor to Le Maire.
On Sunday, during an interview with the channel BFMTV, Breton criticized the government for freezing the pension reform at the beginning of the year, which was supposed to postpone the minimum retirement age from 62 to 64.
According to Breton, the government sought to avoid problems in January by suspending this reform, which was a demand of the socialists to prevent a vote of no confidence. However, he said it would now face a decision that seemed worse to him because it punishes current pensioners.
Le Maire refuted the calculations presented by Breton regarding the cost of this suspension of pension reform to public finances.
Some experts calculated that if the pensions of recipients earning 3000 euros gross were indexed only at half the inflation rate (which was 2.1% in July), this would raise only 700 million euros. This amount could reach 1.5 billion euros if the measure applied to those earning over 2000 euros.
This idea, which was discussed for several days without precise definition, emerged shortly before the French government presented its 2027 budget draft, which is an election year with presidential elections scheduled for April 18 and May 2.
Voters' voices will be very important, as they constitute a very large group (nearly 25% of the population) and demonstrate one of the highest turnout rates.
In 2025, France became the second Eurozone country with the highest deficit, trailing only Belgium, whose deficit was 5.1% of GDP.