THE French state pension age will gradually go up from 60 to 62, the National Assembly has decided, although this is subject to ratification in the Senate this month.
It will increase by four months a year from July 2011, to reach 62 for those taking retirement in 2018. The age at which you can take a full-rate pension if you have an incomplete payment record will also rise, from 65 at present to 67, between 2016 and 2023.
The reform, which the government says is needed to cope with a massive pension deficit and an ageing population, is considered unjust by all the leading French unions, which claim to have mobilised more than two and a half million in street protests on September 7, and were organising another day of strikes and marches for September 23.
The main changes affect everyone who pays into a French pension through work in France. This includes employees, who pay into the régime général de la sécurité social, as well as the self-employed, according to the RSI (which manages pension contributions for those in trade and commerce) and Cipav (the equivalent for the professions libérales).
The changes do not affect the top-up to the basic pension called the pension complémentaire, from which most French earners benefit from.
Other aspects of the reform include reducing some civil service privileges and allowing for retirement at 60 for those who suffer from some form of disability due to having done especially exhausting kinds of work.
How is your pension calculated?
It works according to how many trimesters (three-month periods) you have worked and paid in, what your average salary was, and when you retire. If you paid a full number of trimesters (162 at present) when you get to 60 (62 in the reform), you can take a full-rate pension.
The French (monthly) pension is worked out like this:
You take your average salary in the 25 “best years” (when you earned the most), called the salaire annuel moyen (SAM). This is multiplied by a rate (taux), which is 50 per cent if you worked the full number of trimesters by 60. The resulting figure is then multiplied by the number of trimesters you actually worked, divided by the number of trimesters needed for the maximum possible pension (ie. 162). In other words, if you worked a full 162 trimesters, this figure is “1” so you claim half your average salary.
If you have not paid the full trimesters, there are two effects:
1. Your actual pension received will be reduced eg. if you only worked 81 trimesters, then it is 81/162 = 0.5 (you only worked half a career in the French system, so you get half a pension).
2. A décôte (penalty) is applied unless you wait until 65 to take your pension, which means the taux is not 50 per cent, but a figure that drops progressively the fewer years you worked (to a minimum of 25 per cent).
If you would be affected by the décôte, you can wait until 65 to have a “full” pension without it, but it will still be proportional to the number of trimesters you paid in.
Although the pension varies according to how much you earned, the maximum possible is half of the plafond de la sécurité sociale (social security ceiling) for the year in which you start taking it: €1,442.50 in 2010.
What is changing in the reform?
The basic age for a full pension will be 62, not 60.
The age for a full pension if you did not work the full number of trimesters will be 67, not 65.
The number of trimesters is expected to go up, to 165 by 2013.
What if I have the right to a pension from another country?
The typical Connexion reader who has built up some pension rights in France has probably also had a period of work in the UK. Some people will also have opted to keep paying minimum NI payments while in France.
In Britain, men take a full basic pension at 65, women at 60, though the women’s age is being progressively raised. The UK government plans to raise it to 66 by 2016 for men and 2020 for women. Britain has been decreasing the amount of years you need to pay in for a full pension, which is now 30 for men born after April 1945 and women born after April 1950.
Under EU rules, you can apply for any country’s pension you are entitled to via the pension authority in the country you live in or via the one providing the pension. If you live in France, you can first claim your French pension from the French body in charge of your pension contributions, and then you can also claim your British pension via them, said an expert from international social security body Cleiss, Nicole Deletang.
Under EU rules, if you have not paid a full amount of trimesters in France but you have done if you add in the years paid in the UK, then you can be exonerated from the French décôte penalty. If you live in the UK when your rights arise, you can apply via the UK’s pension service.
