Accused of ill will regarding agricultural pensions, the government has taken a decision that should put an end to the controversy. From 1AND January 2026, the pension paid to former company executives will in fact be set according to the legislation “twenty-five better years” of their career, according to the scheduled timetable. As doubts began to arise about the date of entry into force of this law, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal promised that the deadlines would be respected. This commitment was made official at the end of April, two weeks before the examination of the draft orientation law on food and agricultural sovereignty and generational renewal in agriculture which will begin on Tuesday 14 May in a public session at the National Assembly. .
The arbitration rendered by Attal follows a heated debate which, for several months, pitted the executive against representatives of the farmers and parliamentarians of the Les Républicains (LR) party. The tension was so strong that officials of the National Federation of Farmers’ Unions (FNSEA) closed the door on March 15, during a meeting in Matignon. The organization then suspected that those in power were trying to postpone a reform on the calculation of farmers’ pensions.
There are measures at the origin of the controversy in an invoice promulgated in February 2023. Defended by Julien Dive, LR deputy for Aisne, the text aims to determine, starting from 1AND January 2026, the basic retirement of “non-agricultural employees” – operators, mainly – “based on the most advantageous twenty-five years of insurance”and no longer for his entire career.
Same mechanism as in the private sector
The approach has several objectives. First of all, the aim is to combat an injustice by applying to the profession the same mechanism used for private sector employees. It is also a question of eliminating “lean” years from the calculation, due to a poor harvest or a drop in the prices of products sold, very frequent dangers in this sector of activity. Supporters of the reform therefore want to improve the amount of pensions for farmers, which is significantly lower than average.
Unanimously adopted by the National Assembly and the Senate, the “law of immersion” had expected the government to deliver, by the summer of 2023, a report on the conditions for its entry into force, with several scenarios provided on a turnkey basis. But this assessment, carried out by the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs and the General Council for Food, Agriculture and Rural Areas, was finally communicated only in January 2024. Delays that began to fuel tensions.