Paris, France —The public seem to be fed up with French public service workers (railroad, electric etc.) who want to retire with 1200 euros pension a month at the age of 50 or 55, depending on their job.  Others are fed up with paying for their special pension schemes.  They say these workers are privileged.  OH, the hypocrisy of it all.

President Sarkozy says he wants to de away with what they call here “les régimes spéciaux”, the special regimes of pensions.  He could begin with politicians.

A parliamentarian will get 1548 euros a month pension at 60 for sitting from one to five years in parliament; 3000 euros a month for ten years on the bench; 4500 for 15 years etc.  They get six times more in pension than they pay into the fund in relations to normal private sector workers.

As an aside, the parliamentarians last Spring voted that they should get their full 6000 euro a month salary for a full five years after being voted out of office.

But their régime special does stop here.  French politicians practice what is called le cumul des mandates, that is they can hold five or six public offices at the same time. So lets look at the régime special of former president Jacques Chirac.

Chirac gets 5250 euros a month pension as a former president.  He gets another 5031 euros a month as a former member of parliament.  He also gets 3500 a month for having sat on the Cour des comptes, the body which supervises public spending.  As a former mayor of Paris and a member of the Regional Council he gets another 5000 euros.  So Chirac’s pension comes out to 18 800 euros a month.

But Chirac’s régime special does not stop there.  As a former president he automatically becomes a member of the Constitutional Court and receives a 12 000 euro a month salary.  His total earnings in retirement come out to 30 800 euros a month.

President Sarkozy will get 4000 euros a month as a former member of parliament; 5250 as a former president; 2000 from his local mandates;  and of course his salary of 12 000 a month when he automatically becomes member of the Constitutional Court for a total of 23 250 euros a month at the age of 60.

Oh, I almost forgot the privileged train drivers and high voltage power line climbers.  They will get 1200 euros a month pension after paying into the pension fund for 37.5 years.

For more information go to www.ipol.fr