Here are the retirements again! A collective bringing together no less than 500 big names in French sport publicly questioned the government this Thursday on their right to retire. The collective of French champions is particularly outraged at the inequality of pensions for high-level athletes before 2012.
“While a pension reform thought in 2011, particularly favorable (and that’s good!) has been put in place for generations after 2012, high-level athletes from previous decades will not benefit from a pension complete, even when working up to the maximum legal retirement age of 67,” criticizes the collective in a press release addressed to the president.
“We launch a solemn appeal to Emmanuel Macron”
This grouping of athletes, who have more than 1,000 international medals and claim to represent 35,000 French athletes, also highlights the imbalance with the treatment of current generations. “For the post-2012 generations, the State is offering 16 to 32 quarters free of charge, while it is forcing those before 2012 to buy theirs back, without any gratuity. Worse, older generations of athletes are offered to buy back only 12 quarters when much more is missing, due to their very intensive and restrictive sporting practice! ”, it is explained.
The government’s proposals to respond to this problem are considered “disrespectful and indecent”. “Because our Minister of Sports does not have the means to meet our expectations, we launch a solemn appeal to Emmanuel Macron, President of the Republic, so that he arbitrates and repairs this inequity of treatment and real injustice”, is -he writes.
The collective of “French Champions” was founded in April 2023 by six members: Pascal Eouzan (ex-world tumbling champion), Marie-Claire Restoux (Olympic judo champion), Patrice Martin (12 times world champion). water skiing), Philippe Candeloro (double Olympic medalist in figure skating), Cathy Fleury (Olympic judo champion), and Robert Leroux (Olympic fencing vice-champion).
