Fact check: Is France's pensions system costing €55 billion a year?

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Fact check: Is France's pensions system costing €55 billion a year?  France's Court of Auditors has contradicted earlier claims by Prime Minister François Bayrou about how much the country's pension scheme costs.  READ MORE : http://www.euronews.com/2025/02/24/fact-check-is-frances-pensions-system-costing-55-billion-a-year  Subscribe to our channel. Euronews is available on Dailymotion in 12 languages

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00:00Is France's pension system costing 55 billion euros a year?

00:09Prime Minister François Bayrou shocked France when he said in January that the country's

00:14pension scheme was hemorrhaging billions. Bayrou said that pensions were costing France

00:1955 billion euros a year and that the controversial 2023 pension reform would need another look.

00:25He commissioned France's Cour des Comptes, or Court of Auditors, to carry out a flash report

00:29on the country's coffers to provide objective facts and figures for any future changes to

00:35the pension system. The Court published its report on the 20th February, revealing that

00:39the pensions deficit will sit at some 15 billion euros by 2035 and then around 30 billion two years

00:46later. It's not quite the 55 billion that Bayrou suggested, but still a dire hole in the country's

00:52finances. The deficit will stabilise at around five billion euros for the next five years,

00:58thanks to the effects of the 2023 pension reform, but it won't be enough, according to the Court.

01:03It said that France's 2045 projected financial outlet for pensions is worrying and that two

01:09schemes in particular are the problem, the general pension scheme and that of local

01:14authority and hospital employees. The debt caused by these two schemes would balloon to 470 billion

01:20euros by 2045, according to the Court. It did highlight some positive points, though. It said

01:26that pensions would continue to grow during this period, not accounting for inflation,

01:31and that French pensioners would be in a better position than those in other OECD countries.

01:36Nevertheless, the pension reform, which raised the retirement age from 62 to 64,

01:42remains severely unpopular in France. And the Court of Auditors assessment,

01:46which suggests it doesn't go far enough in fixing France's overall 6.1% deficit,

01:52is a blow to cause to get rid of it.

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