The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Monday gave its support to the pension reform on the eve of a strike day, believing it would help France save money while strengthening the job market.
“Sustained spending-led fiscal consolidation will be key to rebuilding financial buffers and returning debt to a firmly downward path,” the Washington institution wrote in a paper released Monday assessing French economic policy. According to the international organization, “the implementation of the unemployment insurance reform and the pension reform can offer part of this necessary adjustment.”
Spending cuts and other reforms should also make this possible, the IMF judges in this document entitled Article IV. The highly controversial pension reform, which began to be examined this Monday by the Social Affairs Commission of the National Assembly, provides for a decrease in the legal age from 62 to 64 years and an acceleration of the extension of the contribution period, to the chagrin of unions organizing a new day of mobilization on Tuesday.
“Increase the job offer”
Affiliates to the Monetary Fund “greet the recent approval of the unemployment insurance reform and the upcoming pension reform, which will help increase the labor supply,” the institution specifies. Already in November, the international economic institution had mentioned a pension reform as a way to reduce public spending, in the same way as the reduction of tax loopholes or better targeting of aid granted to households and companies to deal with the energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine.
Regarding the aid provided in response to repeated crises, the IMF believes that French support has “made it possible to cushion the impact but has been costly, poorly targeted and a source of distortions” and always calls for more specific measures towards the most vulnerable. . In November, he said he feared “a slight widening of the deficit” in 2023, citing the extension of energy measures and the continued abolition of production taxes for companies.
Source: BFM TV
