Other avenues include immigration, employment, productivity, contributions or pensions, while the COR anticipates an increased deficit after 2045 and an intensified political debate.
The Retirement Orientation Council (COR) calculates, in its latest report, the effort that the age lever alone would require to preserve the balance of the system by 2070. The average starting age should be increased to 67.6 years, or around three years more than the level spontaneously reached. This is a prospective framework, a simulation intended to measure the extent of possible adjustments in the face of an identified demographic constraint, against a backdrop of a lasting decline in the birth rate.
A demographic diagnosis and financing options
This survey is just one avenue among others. According to economist Éric Heyer (OFCE), balance could also be achieved through more immigration, an increase in employment rates and productivity gains greater than current COR assumptions. Other levers mentioned for financial balance include an increase in contributions, whether they weigh on employees or employers, or a reduction in the level of pensions paid.
The demographic diagnosis is summarized as follows: “fewer children, therefore fewer contributions”. The COR warns that the drop in the birth rate will worsen the system’s deficit after 2045 more than anticipated. This observation is expected to fuel the national political debate, including with a view to the presidential election, in a context where trade-offs weigh several adjustment instruments.
A French legal age even lower than that of several neighbors
In France, the legal retirement age is set at 62 years and 9 months in 2026, as part of an ongoing gradual increase. The 2010 law had already raised the legal minimum age from 60 to 62, a change which moved the “ideal age” declared by the French towards higher brackets, according to DREES.
In several European neighbors, the legal age is already higher: minimum 65 years in Spain, 66 years and 4 months in Germany, 67 years in Denmark. These are countries where the birth rate is lower than in France, which also weighs on their balance. In Spain, the employees’ scheme sets a minimum retirement age of 65 years under career conditions, within a reformed framework which gradually raises the reference age depending on the contribution period. In Germany, the legal regime provides for a gradual increase in the retirement age towards 67 depending on the year of birth. In Denmark, the legal old age pension age is 67 in the basic scheme, with adjustments provided for by national regulations.
Public opinion attached to an early departure
French public opinion remains predominantly in favor of leaving before the age of 65. According to the DREES, 74% of non-retirees said they would like to leave between the ages of 61 and 64, with the ideal age being 62. On the ground, acceptability appears contrasting: a 29-year-old trader, in good health, says he is ready to work “as late” if necessary, while another, aged 55 and active since he was 17, doubts he will be able to last “in 10 years”.
The future trade-offs therefore oppose several options – raising the age, increasing contributions, reducing pensions, support for employment and productivity, recourse to immigration – to respond to a demographic constraint put forward by the COR and already at the center of political contests.
