LONG CAREERS 2023. The pension reform should allow more people to benefit from early retirement for having started their career before the age of 21. Here are the new rules if the text comes into force.

[Updated March 30, 2023 at 10:05 a.m.] The potential adoption of the pension reform, and its possible entry into force from the summer of 2023, should disrupt the so-called “long career” system. Indeed, two new levels should be created, allowing the greatest number of people to benefit from an early departure. A new one at 18, so as to retire at 60, and another at 21, to leave at 63. As a reminder, the new legal retirement age should be set at 64 years old. To benefit from these early departures, it is necessary to present a complete career, i.e. 172 quarters and 43 annuities. Also, it is mandatory to have validated 5 terms before any age level, whether the old ones, or the new ones created by the reform.

The other major novelty for the long career scheme concerns people who have had a short career due to parental leave. These people could therefore validate up to four additional quarters in this situation. These periods would also be counted in the calculation of the increased minimum pension, which should increase the amount of small pensions for certain women, forced to put their careers on hold to take care of their child(ren).

Today, to benefit from early retirement for a long career, you must have started working before the age of 20 or before the age of 16. Two very distinct thresholds. You should also know that two other conditions must be met. First, your pension insurance period must include, all compulsory basic schemes combined, a minimum number of quarters contributed. Also, you must have acquired a minimum number of quarters of retirement insurance at the start of your career. These 2 pension insurance duration conditions vary according to your year of birth, the age from which you started working and the age from which you plan to take early retirement.

The 2023 pension reform should significantly modify the system by creating two new levels. A first at 18, allowing retirement at 60, four years earlier. A second, at 21, allowing retirement at 63, i.e. 1 year earlier than the new legal retirement age set at 64 by the reform. The creation of the threshold at 21 should allow 300,000 additional people to retire earlier.

Through the pension reform, the government promises a new system “adapted, so that no one who started working early is forced to work over 44 years”. But the system of long careers appears to be the main point of contention between the majority and the opposition. So much so that the Prime Minister has already let go, by agreeing to grant an early departure at 63, for those who started working before the age of 21. The maximum threshold was until then at 20 years. A concession like an outstretched hand to the deputies Les Républicains, who appear to be the only solution of alliance for the majority, with a view to adopting the text without passing by force with the help of a possible 49.3. This gesture on the part of the number 2 of the government could cost between 600 million and 1 billion euros per year.

Here is the new retirement age, based on your starting age. Attention, to benefit from this early departure, it is mandatory to have validated at least 5 terms before the age of 20, 4 if you were born at the end of the year:

The national pension fund for local authority employees (CNRACL) is the pension fund for the basic scheme of local government and hospital employees. It is a public administrative institution of the State, it is managed by the Pensions and Solidarity Department of Caisse des Dépôts. Note that the conditions for obtaining a “long career” pension are exactly the same as for other civil servants.