The pension reform in France has entered a phase in which the debate is no longer only about what the 2023 law provided for, but about what has actually happened. Between the gradual increase in the statutory retirement age, early retirements that remain possible, and the partial suspension voted for 2026, the real trajectory is more nuanced than a simple move from 62 to 64.

Three years after the vote, the pension reform in France has indeed postponed some retirements and increased employment among 60-64-year-olds. But it has also increased the number of people who find themselves between employment and retirement, while its timetable is now being partially adjusted from September 1, 2026.

2023: the change begins, but the effects are still difficult to isolate

The law of April 14, 2023 came into force from September of the same year. Its principle is well known: gradually raise the statutory retirement age from 62 to 64 and speed up the extension of the contribution period required to receive a full pension. For insured people born from 1965 onward, this period reaches 172 quarters, or 43 years.

However, the data available here do not provide a specific average effective retirement age for 2023. The best comparable starting point is therefore 2022, just before the reform: according to France's Pensions Advisory Council, the COR, the average effective retirement age was then 62.9 years.

This matters because it avoids a common confusion: the statutory retirement age is not the age at which everyone actually retires. Long careers, incapacity for work or disability still allow early retirement. The 2023 reform did not abolish these routes, even though it tightened some conditions linked to contribution length.

2024: the actual retirement age rises, and so does senior employment

In 2024, the COR measured an average effective retirement age of 63.3 years, compared with 62.9 years in 2022. The shift is therefore visible: four-tenths of a year more in two years. This is in line with the reform's objective, without meaning that French people are already retiring en masse at 64.

The change can also be seen in the labor market. According to DARES, the employment rate of 60-64-year-olds rose from 36.2% in 2022 to 41.1% in 2024. In other words, more older workers are staying in employment as the reform is phased in.

But another indicator tempers this result. DREES estimates that around 210,000 people were in a “gray zone” at the end of 2022, neither employed nor retired. There were around 280,000 at the end of 2024. Raising the retirement age therefore does not automatically translate into two additional years of employment for everyone.

This is probably one of the most useful lessons at the halfway point: a reform can simultaneously improve senior employment and increase the number of people stuck between the end of their working life and the opening of their pension rights. Both trends can progress at the same time.

2025: the statistics confirm the phase-in, but indicators require caution

At the end of 2025, the general pension scheme had 15.6 million retirees. Over the year, 949,413 pensions were awarded, all types of rights combined. The average amount of a newly awarded direct pension entitlement was 838 euros, with 956 euros for men and 730 euros for women.

A CNAV factsheet published in February 2026 also reported an average retirement age of 66.2 years for new retirees in the general scheme as of December 31, 2025. This figure should not be compared directly with the COR's 63.3 years for 2024: the two institutions are not describing the same indicator, and the available information does not make it possible to reconcile their methods precisely.

It would therefore be misleading to claim that the average retirement age suddenly rose from 63.3 to 66.2 in a single year. What can be said with certainty is that the available statistics show retirements being postponed, but not through a perfectly consistent annual series.

How many people still retire before 64?

This is one of the most interesting questions and, paradoxically, one of the least well documented in the available figures. Long-career schemes remain open, with four possible early retirement ages: 58, 60, 62 or 63, depending on the age at which a person started working and the length of their contribution record. Early retirement for incapacity or disability also remains possible.

However, there is no consolidated figure here that establishes the exact share of all French people who retired before 64 through these exemptions between 2023 and 2026. A global percentage should therefore not be manufactured from partial data.

There is nevertheless one indicator for 2026: among the roughly 64,000 insured people expected to benefit from the timetable suspension that year, 10,000 to 15,000 would do so under the long-career rules. This figure measures the effect of the suspension on that scheme, not all retirements before age 64.

2026: the reform is not repealed, but its timetable is partially suspended

The main change in 2026 is both political and practical. The 2026 Social Security Financing Act provides for a partial suspension of the increase in the statutory retirement age for generations born between 1964 and 1968. It applies to pensions taking effect from September 1, 2026. A retirement already scheduled before that date remains subject to the previous timetable.

The decree of May 7, 2026, published on May 8, notably specifies how this suspension applies to long careers. For these cases, the new rules concern people born between 1964 and 1970 who meet the required conditions and whose pension takes effect from September 1.

According to France's Retirement Insurance system, around 2.2 million people are potentially affected by the new timetable and 1.2 million could bring forward their retirement by about three months on average. For 2026 alone, around 854,000 pensions are expected to be liquidated, including 64,000 beneficiaries of the suspension.

However, caution is still needed over the exact details of the timetable after the suspension. Available publications differ on the duration of the measure and on certain ages applicable to the generations concerned. The solid point is therefore the partial suspension from September 1, 2026, not a detailed age table presented as definitively settled.

Public finances: is the reform delivering the expected savings?

On the financial side, the COR estimates that the 2023 reform represents net savings of 17.7 billion euros per year by 2030. Over the longer term, it would reduce the pension system's financing requirement from 0.8% to 0.4% of GDP by 2070.

An initial assessment published eighteen months after the statutory retirement age of 64 began to apply also cited 280,000 postponed retirements and an increase of around five percentage points in senior employment. These orders of magnitude are consistent with the rise measured by DARES between 2022 and 2024.

But the assessment cannot be limited to budgetary savings. The growth of the gray zone between 2022 and 2024 shows that part of the transition cost is being shifted onto insured people who are already out of work but are not yet able to claim their pension.

What the 2023-2026 period really shows

The reform has therefore produced a measurable effect: the effective retirement age is rising, employment among 60-64-year-olds is increasing, and future finances improve in the COR's projections. In that sense, part of the mechanism planned in 2023 is working.

But the story does not end there. Retirement before 64 remains possible, the number of people neither employed nor retired has increased, and the original timetable is now partially suspended for several generations. The 2026 debate is therefore no longer only about “64 or not,” but about how to adjust a reform already under way without losing its financial effects or worsening transition periods for insured people.

The real conclusion is this: between 2023 and 2026, France did not suddenly move from a system based on age 62 to one in which everyone retires at 64. It entered a gradual, measurable trajectory that is already being adjusted along the way.