French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault (R) shakes hands with an employee of Eiffage TP during a visit of a tunnel digging site in Velizy-Villacoublay, near Paris (Photo: Reuters)
French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault (R) shakes hands with an employee of Eiffage TP during a visit of a tunnel digging site in Velizy-Villacoublay, near Paris (Photo: Reuters)

France is eyeing up some major changes to its retirement legislation by installing a points-based retirement credit system, as opposed to a years-of-work tally, in a bid to give workers more control over when they start collecting their pension.

During a visit to a construction site in in Velizy-Villacoublay, Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said that people in tough physical jobs will be given more of a say of when they retired if they were able to rack up credits that contribute to their pension, rather than a length of time that they have worked.

Ayrault confirmed that he aims to submit plans to parliament over the next few weeks after ironing out the finer details of the proposed rule change.

Tackling Pension Deficits

France's President Francois Hollande and his socialist party are already mulling over a number of changes to the retirement system as the government is under pressure to effectively tackle its bloated pension deficit.

However, Hollande has vehemently opposed, in the past, a number of key reforms to the retirement system in which the former ruling party u-turned on later down the line.

In 2010, the country's former Conservative President Nicholas Sarkozy raised the retirement age to by two years to 62, but quickly reduced it again two years later, after young people found it increasingly difficult to secure a job.

Points-Based System

The points-based pension system has been praised for its flexibility, simplicity, and transparency by a number of countries that have it installed.

Ayrault said that those in physically intensive jobs, or those who work anti-social hours, will most likely benefit from the change as well as those who decide to take time out for care for children or the elderly.

"If we want our French social model to live on, we have to take into account the high expectations of workers, in particular those who work in onerous conditions," said Ayrault.

France's prime minister added that the government is planning to meet trade union leaders at the end of this month in order to provide finer details to the proposal that will be presented in a cabinet meeting on 18 September this year.