The retirees large losers from the Bayrou plan! [Budget 2026]

Essential

Table of Contents

• Essential
• “Stop to debt” plan: an unprecedented budgetary effort of € 43.8 billion
• Retirees: 90 % losers, 5 % of winners according to OFCE
  • • Also read on the finance bill for 2026
    • To read also on retirement concerns

• François Bayrou’s “Stop at the debt” plan aims at € 43.8 billion in savings;
• It is largely based on the use of retirees;
• According to the OFCE, the simultaneous frost of pensions, ASPA and the tax scale will withdraw € 4.1 billion in purchasing power to seniors from 2026.

“Stop to debt” plan: an unprecedented budgetary effort of € 43.8 billion

Announced on July 15, 2025 by François Bayrou, the 2026 plan “Stop to debt” imposes an overall budgetary effort of € 43.8 billion by 2026. For the first time, retirees are directly targeted by four measures: ASPA frost, freeze, freeze of the IR – CHSG scale and reform of the allowance. With this budgetary plan, the objective of the tenant of Matignon is, let us remember,Erase in a single year almost two thirds of the deficit planned for 2025. The march is therefore high: for lack of an absolute majority in the assembly, each measure will have to convince beyond traditional political borders.

By revealing the main lines of its action plan, the government has not clearly indicated which households would be advantaged or penalized by this tax overhaul. This is why Pierre Madec lighting is essential. The economist stresses that the effect of the reform depends closely on the composition of income: retirees whose resources come mainly from heritage will not be affected in the same way as those who live mainly from their pension. In total, according to the analysis of Pierre Madec, with the implementation of the plan “Stop to debt”, the disposable income of households with at least one retiree would decrease in € 4.9 billionor – 0.9 % of their average standard of living.

Retirees: 90 % losers, 5 % of winners according to OFCE

According to the OFCE, the vast majority of retirees will come out of the Bayrou plan: 9 out of 10 homes will see their purchasing power to go back, while 5 % will remain almost neutral and barely 5 % will be winners. The rare advantaged households are mainly couples where only one spouse is retired and who have other sources of income. Conversely, retirees living alone, whose pension often constitutes almost all of income, will undergo the most marked tax increase. The easier you are, the higher the loss in euros: count around € 100 per year for a modest retiree, but almost € 1,000 for a couple belonging to the higher income deciles.

9 out of 10 homes

9 out of 10 households will see their purchasing power back down with the Bayrou plan according to the OFCE.

In the absence of a clear majority in the assembly, the magnitude of these measures already arouses strong criticisms of all stripes: from the left to the far right, passing by votes of the majority. For Pierre Madec, the “double penalty” of retirees (gel excluding inflation + absence of revaluation for one year) is equivalent to Two years of consecutive purchasing power. Beyond the encrypted impact, this is the question oftax justice and macroeconomic coherence Who laid down: hitting an audience that is strongly saving to bail out the debt, even though it feeds state funding in turn by its investments. In the fall, during the budgetary discussion, parliamentarians will therefore have the heavy task of preserving the public balance without sacrificing a particularly sensitive electorate nor digging more inequalities.