Pensions: Edouard Philippe wants reform ‘quickly’

At the head of the Horizons party, former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe supports in an interview with Le Point the pension reform presented by Elisabeth Bourne. In his opinion, “reform is necessary, and it is better to carry it out quickly than slowly,” and the union announced the first demonstration on January 19.

“If we go towards a system that ultimately balances pensions, that contains measures of equity, very well,” Edouard Philippe warns from the outset. And once again about the postponement of the retirement age to 64 years: “If the measure proposed by the government affects the balance sheet in the same way as the postponement to 65 years, then very well.” According to him, Horizons will support everything that is aimed at increasing work in order to guarantee greater prosperity and greater solidarity.

In his opinion, and unlike François Bayrou, who wants to take time to think, the mayor of Le Havre is in favor of a reform that needs to be carried out “quickly”, while the union announced the first demonstration on January 19 and that Nupes should make several thousand amendments to time for discussion of the text in Parliament.

“Retirement is a long and sad national tension”

According to him, “every reform is a crisis, and no reform solves the issue. Pensions are a long and sad national tension,” notes the former prime minister, who probably has not forgotten what happened in 2019 when he was in Matignon. Convinced of the need to work harder and longer, he managed to include the key age of 64 in the reform that Emmanuel Macron sought. Faced with opposition from the streets and strikers, the former prime minister was forced to resign in the winter of 2020. The text was adopted on 49.3 on first reading in the Assembly, but the conclusion finally put the text in the cupboard.

Edouard Philippe corrects the situation a little, who threw a stone into the pond in the fall, including in Macroni, with the idea of ​​pushing the retirement age to 67 years. Even if his group and, possibly, the deputies of the Republic of Latvia will try to point this cursor during the discussion of the text. “I never said I wanted to change at 67. I know very well that among the people who are against the reform or against me, there are those who said “He’s joking, Dede, he wants to improve at 67,” he says, adding: “I was just stating a fact: other countries in Europe, our neighbors like Germany or Italy, faced with the same problems, all chose 65, 66 or 67, whether right or left. winged governments.

Eduard Philipp, finally, believes that this pension reform should not be the alpha and omega of the executive branch’s transformation program. “There are thousands of much more important cases that deserve at least as much time for discussion and such constant intellectual and political activity,” he argues, referring to the problems of youth unemployment, the politics of residence …