Jordan
Bardella allies plan to soften Marine Le Pen’s pension promise
The
National Rally old guard fears moderating on the retirement age could alienate
its working-class base.
June 30,
2026 4:00 am CET
By Marion
Solletty
PARIS —
As Jordan Bardella edges closer to possibly replacing Marine Le Pen as France’s
far-right presidential candidate, he is taking aim at one of her key economic
promises.
Le Pen
has made the preservation of France’s generous pension system a major campaign
issue, pledging to roll back President Emmanuel Macron’s reforms and keep the
country’s legal retirement age at 62. Bardella has suggested that policy should
be up for debate.
Officials
close to Bardella are now studying a plan to scrap a rule allowing individuals
to retire on a full pension at 67, even if they haven’t paid in long enough to
otherwise qualify, according to two National Rally party officials. Instead,
workers would have to wait until they’ve contributed for 42 years, or opt to
retire with a lower pension.
The
pension issue is sharpening tensions between Le Pen’s old guard, worried about
losing the party’s working-class base, and officials close to Bardella who
argue the party needs to boost its economic credibility and win over moderate
voters worried about France’s crumbling finances.
The split
has become more urgent ahead of July 7, when an appeals court is due to decide
whether to uphold Le Pen’s conviction for embezzling EU funds and the
accompanying five-year ban on holding electoral office.
Le Pen
has said that if she is unable to run, Bardella will be the party’s candidate
in next year’s presidential election.
In the
current system, French workers can claim a full state pension from age 62 and 9
months, rising gradually to 64 under Macron’s reform, if they have paid into
the system long enough. Those who have not reached the required contribution
period can still claim a full pension at 67.
Bardella’s
allies argue that their proposal would make the system fairer by placing
greater emphasis on how long people have paid in rather than on the age at
which they retire.
“Currently,
the average length of contribution is 39 years,” said one of the National Rally
officials. “Everybody knows the system is not viable.” The average length of
contribution was 39.2 years for people born in 1950, according to government
data.
Dividing
line
Last
month, Bardella caught some of Le Pen’s top lieutenants off guard by
questioning whether retirement age should remain the party’s central measure of
fairness on pensions.
“The
retirement age means nothing,” he said on French television channel LCI. “To
make the system much clearer and much fairer, we need to look at the number of
years of contributions. That’s what matters. I think we’d be better off
simplifying things and building a system that places greater emphasis on the
length of contribution.”
In both
Le Pen’s and Bardella’s circles, pensions are seen as one of the most urgent
questions to settle after the July 7 court ruling on Le Pen’s political future.
The party is expected to unveil its full presidential platform in the fall.
“Pensions
are sacred,” said National Rally MP Sébastien Chenu, a top Le Pen lieutenant,
when pressed on Bardella’s comments earlier this month. “It’s something we
built together.”
Last
week, Le Pen herself weighed in, telling France Culture radio she wanted “a
fair reform,” and that a legal retirement age of 62 was still part of that.
But, she added, “there are injustices.”
“Someone
who started at age 30 pays into the system for 37 years, that’s not quite
right,” she said, signaling an apparent openness on the issue of full pension
age.
One key
question is who would be hit hardest by such a change. Data recently analyzed
by researchers at the Public Policy Institute suggest it would affect primarily
low-skilled workers whose careers have been interrupted by periods of
unemployment and, to a lesser extent, executives and self-employed workers who
entered the labor market late after extended studies.
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