850,000 retirees in France will see their pension increase from October

A total of 850,000 pensioners in France are set to see their pensions rise by just under €51 per month from this October, it has been confirmed.

The director general of the Caisse Nationale d'Assurance Vieillesse (CNAV), Renaud Villard, announced the increase on September 3 in newspaper Le Parisien.

Retrospective payment 

The change will be the second wave of increases to so-called ‘small pensions’ (for pensioners who worked for minimum wage, Smic), as part of the pension reform package, after 600,000 pensioners had their pensions increased in autumn 2023. 

“We are going to pay the planned increase for 850,000 people,” said Mr Villard. “They will receive two types of payment. 

“On or around September 25, they will receive the increase to [retrospectively] catch up on the increase they should have received from September 1, 2023 [when the reform came into force]. And on October 9, [they will start to receive] their increased pension,” he said.

He said that the pensioners affected will receive an “average retrospective payment of €600”, and from October 9, their pensions will be increased by an average of €50.94 every month. 

“Information letters will be sent out from September 9,” said Mr Villard.

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Smic workers and ‘paper archives’

The backlog was caused by the time it has taken for the CNAV to “piece together” details of pensioners who left the workforce before 2009, he said. “For those who left 20, 30 or 40 years ago, we had to reconstruct their careers, sometimes even by searching through paper archives.”.

The pension reform increased the “minimum contributif (Mico, minimum contributory pension)”. This is a support scheme for ‘small pensions’, for amounts of a minimum of 85% of the net minimum wage (Smic), for an employee who has completed a full career on Smic.

Read also: Will UK pension increases apply to state pensioners in France? 

This measure was introduced in a bid to strengthen the ‘social aspects’ of a reform that will raise the statutory retirement age from 62 to 64, the government has said.

Mr Villard points out that around 600,000 pensioners under the general scheme had already seen their pensions increased in a first wave of increases in autumn 2023, when the reform came into force. 

He also said that “whatever the decisions” made by the government on pension reform - which is highly controversial - the Assurance retraite would “apply the law”.

Pensions in France

According to a study published by the Ministry of Social Affairs at the end of 2021 there were more than 17 million state pensioners in France. On average, each receives around €1,531 gross per month. 

Figures from la Securité Sociale show that the average age of retirement in France in 2021 was 62.6, up from 60.5 in 2020. The reform of April 14, 2023, pushed the retirement age up to 64. 

The amount that workers are entitled to depends not only on their age, but also the number of ‘trimestres’ of work completed, and their wage during their career.