Welcome. Here we take the time to understand before investing. No hype, no FOMO — just educational, sourced and honest articles about uncertainty.
The backbone of the French system, explained simply: pay-as-you-go, the mandatory tiers, the real meaning of the “42 schemes” figure, and what the 2023 reform — then its 2026 suspension — actually change.
Final episode: we leave France. United States, Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway — how others fund their pensions, what is singular about France, and why the “sovereign fund that pays the pensions” is a myth.
readBehind the big schemes hides a gallery of tiny ones: Opera ballet dancers retiring at 42, the Comédie-Française, the Banque de France, notaries' clerks. Minuscule in headcount, they reveal the often-forgotten logic of the 2023 reform.
readBorn in 1673 under Colbert, the seafarers' scheme is the doyen of French pensions — still open, more than 80% funded by the State, and built on a unique logic: you contribute not on your wage, but on a flat-rate scale by category.
readThe most media-covered scheme is also the best textbook case: its rules, its State subsidy, and above all what “closing a scheme” means over fifty years — a slow wind-down, not an immediate saving.
readOften confused with SNCF's, the electricity and gas workers' scheme differs on one decisive point: it receives no State subsidy. How it's really funded (yes, the CTA levy on your bill), and the funded layer — the PERO — sitting on top.
readThe railway workers' scheme without the trial or the whitewash: its history, its calculation on the last six months, its retirement ages — and why the State pays roughly €3.2bn a year to balance it.
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