France – Second round of elections: How the Pension affects the ballot box on April 24

Emanuel Macron has just announced that he will increase pensions by 4% if he is re-elected to the Palais des Champs-Elysées, although pensions are not normally adjusted before January, according to a Handelsblatt report on the forthcoming French presidential election. on April 24th.

The early change can be explained on the one hand by the current price increases. But that is not the only reason. The pension is a sensitive issue for the presidential campaign, which is coming down for the second time in the second round of the electoral contest with the far right Marin Lepen on April 24. The newspaper Le Figaro wrote: “Pension reform – the issue that has been poisoning Macron for five years”.

Shortly before the first round of voting, Macron announced that he wanted to raise the retirement age to 65 by 2031. From 2023, the retirement age will increase by four months a year for those born in 1961 or later.

There are not many other options for financing the social system – either more contributions or fewer pensions, Macron said. His plan sparked outrage and criticism, especially from the left, which spoke of social injustice.

Most right-wing presidential candidates wanted to raise the retirement age. Le Pen, however, continues to rely on the current age limit of 62 and even lures workers who started retiring early in the 60s. social justice”.

In the face of criticism, Macron has meanwhile retreated a bit. The retirement age of 64 is also possible, he said: “The 65th year is not a dogma.” If there were many tensions and an agreement could be reached in this way, adjustment would be possible.

For Macron, pensions were the big task of his first term. He designed a fundamental reform of the entire pension system, aligning the various pension funds and introducing a points system. The official retirement age was to remain at 62, but the retirement age at which full payments would be paid would be around 64.

The planned reform led to months of strikes and protests between December 2019 and February 2020. Then came the corona pandemic and the project was postponed – but not canceled. For Macron, this plan is as much a priority as the unemployment insurance reform he has already implemented.

Now the president is back in the campaign with his plan. In the first round of the presidential election, his retirement plan was an asset, says François Miquet-Marty, director of the Viavoice polling institute. “This allowed the right-wing voters to be taken prisoner.” But it is an issue that could cause tensions and worry many voters, he says.

Macron targets left-wing voters

Reform could thus be a brake on the electoral contest. Macron must try to win votes from left-wing voters between the two rounds of voting. The calls of the Conservatives, the Greens and the Socialists to vote for Macron are not enough, because they did very badly in the elections.

Therefore, the liberal Macron must focus on the voters of the left-wing politician Jean-Luc Melanson, who with 21.95% was behind Le Pen (23.15%) and Macron (27.84%) in the first round. Some left-wing voters could distance themselves from Le Pen, others may not vote at all.

Especially in the ranks of Mélenchon supporters, there is a mood against Macron. He has been criticized as the “president of the rich” and has become unpopular, among other things, with tax cuts for businesses.

Macron must now make concessions on social issues. He has already proposed increasing the minimum pension from 980 euros to 1100 euros.