The small special schemes: Opera, Comédie-Française, Banque de France…

We’ve seen the heavyweights — SNCF , IEG , RATP — and the doyen, the seafarers . But the landscape of special pension schemes also holds a crowd of tiny schemes, sometimes just a few hundred people. Minuscule in headcount, they’re valuable for understanding: taken together, they reveal why the 2023 reform closed some schemes… and not others.

6th episode. See the overall architecture (episode 1) for the vocabulary (special scheme, grandfather clause).

Paris Opera: retiring as a dancer at 42

This is the most striking. Within the Paris Opera staff pension fund, the ballet dancers can — and must — leave very early: minimum age 40, compulsory retirement at 42 (after at least one year of service)¹. The reason is no arbitrary privilege: a top-level dancing career ends, physically, around forty. The scheme organises a career change, not a gilded idleness. The rest of the Opera staff fall under more conventional rules.

Comédie-Française: 400 people, a scheme of its own

More discreet still: the CRPCF (Comédie-Française staff pension fund), a special scheme created in 1914, managing base and complementary pensions for actors (pensionnaires and sociétaires), technicians and staff. It’s one of the smallest schemes in France: fewer than 400 contributors for about 400 retirees². Retirement ages vary by trade (57 for some technicians, 62 for administrative staff and actor-pensionnaires). The Opera and the Comédie-Française both defended and kept their scheme in 2023.

Banque de France and notaries’ clerks: closed in 2023

Two other “small” ones did, however, slip into the grandfather clause on 1 September 2023:

• the Banque de France: its tenured-staff scheme is closed to new entrants, who now join the general scheme³;
• the notaries’ clerks and employees (CRPCEN): the old-age scheme is closed to those hired in the notarial profession from that date (decree no. 2023-689), new members joining the general scheme + Agirc-Arrco. A quirk: the CRPCEN still manages health and insurance cover for the whole profession, old and new⁴.

Others could be cited: the mining scheme (CANSSM), winding down for want of miners; the parliamentary assemblies’ schemes; the Port of Strasbourg; or the CESE, moved to Ircantec in 2023. So many pieces that, added up, feed the “42” count⁵.

Key takeaways

• Beneath the big schemes is a gallery of tiny ones: Opera, Comédie-Française (CRPCF, < 400 contributors), Banque de France, notaries’ clerks, mines…
• The Opera retires its dancers at 40-42 — a trade specificity, not a privilege: a dancing career physically ends.
• In 2023, the Banque de France and notaries’ clerks (CRPCEN) were closed; the Opera and Comédie-Française were not.
• The dividing line: institution schemes close; those whose specificity is an undisputed fact of the trade hold out better.

Next episode — and the end of the series: we leave France to compare . United States, Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway: pay-as-you-go, funded, sovereign fund… and the myth of the “fund that pays the pensions”, to be debunked.

This article is general information and does not constitute advice. The rules and figures cited are those known in mid-2026 and change with each reform.