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Pensions in France


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We were having lunch with a French banker and his wife the other Sunday.  I raised the thorny topic of pension ages with him, as I have done with several French people.  I am always met with blank stares when I explain that, as a man, 65 has been the retirement age since Noah was paying his contributions.  I also tell them the (vast) state pension you receive after paying al your contributions.  My wife usually chips in saying she cannot touch her pension till she is 67.  At that point the bankers wife (she is a teacher in a French college) expressed much horror at the thought of working in her school that long (after listening to her daily work life I did not blame her!)

From my point of view its a no brainer that the French have to either work longer or raise their already high contributions.  I do not expect sympathy for the UK system (with all its faults like just one authority to contact for your pension etc!).  Has anyone had realistic feed back from a French person on the need to reform?

 

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The French hate change of any sort so telling them that they have to work longer was bound to lead to an outcry, it's the speed of the bringing in of the change though that has upset people the most I think and I have to say I kind of agree with them. To tell people that were expecting to retire late this year that they're going to have to wait a few more months with near zero warning just seems wrong. Retirement is a big thing and for many the fact that they'll be finishing work on a certain date is/was something to look forward to.

Pension reform is needed otherwise the country will be skint in 20 years time, it's how the reform is enacted that requires a re-think. 

   

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  • 1 month later...

I have 3 small French pensions from different "Caisses"so have had to jump through all the hoops

French pensions  are calculated rather differently from the UK State Pension.

For a start there are a I think 42 different branches each with different conditions that have been negotiated in partnership with the Unions over there years. If anyone here has a teachers' or civil service pension that's give some idea of the model since the amount you receive is based on three factors: how long you have worked; an average figure( which is calculated differently in the different branches) and something called the 'taux'   https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F21552

Remember that there is a difference between the number of years you have to work to qualify for a pension, and the age at which you can take it. I believe that now in England you qualify for a full state pension after 35 years contributions (although I am open to correction on that), but you can't take it before 67 (in my day 65)

In France you have to I have paid 42 years contributions, and this is going up on the new plan, so while  you might be allowed 60 or 62 many people will not have paid full  contributions by that age.

Another difference is the way in which contributions in which contributions are calculated. In France contributions are calculated in France it is 'trimestres'  ad if by chance some of them are  not 'complete'  (that is to say that not enough hours have been worked to count  as a full 'trimestre' you can find yourself  with some incomplete years.

There is no equivalent to the OAP: pensions of calculated according to the above rules, so there isn't a single standard pension, although in some circumstances there is a minimum, BUT there are many people on very low pensions, often women who did not work in their own right for example.

One final difference is the retired people in France continue to pay some social charges( in bands according to their income) unlike in the UK where retired people do not pay National Insurance.

I am not putting a case for or against the present reform or the protests against it, but I am trying to warn against making easy comparisons of very different systems.

 

 

 

 

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Thanks NormanH.  I served in the RN for my professional life and was both General Service, a submariner and an Diver.  When speaking to my French counterparts, I discovered that for time served in their armed forces pension related time a year's service was not, in fact a year!  A submariner, for example, counted his "year" as double his "ship" counterparts.   I knew a counter measures diver who got several times the actual time served when on deployment.  For us a "year" was in fact just a year.  

The same for their pay.  Met up with a French group in the Indian Ocean, they were on double pay during their time away from home base.  We were on the same rate as UK service.

It is indeed difficult to make comparisons.

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That's really interesting, Norman.  I was trying to explain that to my French teacher (a retired teacher, French native) today and she just couldn't understand how the qualifying years in UK were less but the age of getting pension higher.  As you say, difficult to compare systems.

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