“We are not at 35 hours! “: a senator defends the special pension scheme of the Senate
More than 3,500 euros in retirement for more than 8 years of office at the Luxembourg Palace… it is this retirement pension that Senator Élisabeth Doineau, member of the joint committee which was held this Wednesday on the pension reform projecttried to justify this Wednesday at the microphone of France Blue. And the elected representative of Mayenne to defend an intense work rhythm: “We are not at 35 hours! »
“I had a choppy career, I got involved in the associative movement and as a local elected official, at the start. I’m not running behind that and this controversy, I find it a little easy, because an elected official’s commitment, believe me, it takes time, we’re not at 35 hours! “Justified the senator from Mayenne to the local radio which had calculated her retirement pension, corresponding to 3,500 euros for the one who was elected in 2014.
A senator gets at the end of a six-year term of office a retirement pension corresponding to 2,200 euros net. If he continues with a second term, then it goes to 4,400 euros net. But the regime of senators has the specificity of being an autonomous regime, these parliamentarians financing their regime themselves. And if the deputies are aligned with the civil service system, this is not the case for the senators. “It is an autonomous system, the French do not participate in the balance of pensions for parliamentarians”, also defends Élisabeth Doineau.
An advantage in question
The President of the Senate, Gérard Larcher, had also defended an “autonomous regime, because it is important that parliamentarians are not, whatever the country, under direct pressure from the executive”. But the debate was invited to the Senate, during the debate on the pension reform, when the senators voted the abolition of special diets “Today we are eliminating five special diets. The French are watching us, do you think we will keep our credibility? asked the PS senator of Guadeloupe Victorin.
The left-wing senators had suggested to Gérard Larcher to “change” their special regime. “This proposal is part of a process of social justice, transparency and democratic exemplarity”, justified the president of the environmental group Guillaume Gontard. The government, by the voice of his spokesperson, Olivier Véran, had already spoken: “Parliamentarians must decide whether or not, after the application of the law, to apply this regime. I think we have to be exemplary in every way, housed like everyone else. »
