Lack of pot for Kylian Mbappé, the striker of Paris Saint-Germain will be in Germany on March 7 to prepare the return match of C1 against Bayern Munich and will not be able to participate in the big demo planned against the pension reform. However, according to Sandrine Rousseau, who inquired about the future of the vice-world champion, he would have good reason to take out his small card of demands and to go and beat the pavement with the trade unions and workers who will be described as lambdas.

"On the career of athletes, since this is the amendment we are discussing today, I ask myself: what will Mbappé do after 50 years? I do not know if Emmanuel Macron, at the time when he was making papouilles in Mbappé, spoke to him about his career when he will be senior, "launched the deputy Europe Ecology-The Greens (EE-LV), on January 31 in the Committee on Social Affairs, when defending an amendment to integrate high-level athletes in the index of seniors (device planned by the government to promote the employment of seniors in the context of raising the statutory retirement age).



If the example taken by Sandrine Rousseau has something to smile about, Mbappé earning enough to support generations and generations of mini-him, the deputy is not so close to the plate as his detractors have wanted to make believe. "There is little chance that we will meet Mbappé in a demonstration on Tuesday," smiles economist Pierre Rondeau. It seems to me to be an example misused but it is true that the subject concerns a lot of other sportsmen and sportswomen who could worry about an increase in their precariousness, already significant, because of this pension reform, and who could therefore be on the street on Tuesday. Because, if Mbappé has the means to put aside and see it coming without too many problems, the vast majority of high-level athletes do not have the same facilities and experience great difficulties after their career. »

Short and choppy careers

Having for the most part sacrificed part of their youth and their studies to devote themselves to the practice of their sport, which is nevertheless a profession, athletes, who have ultra-short and sometimes low-paying careers, do not have the opportunity to contribute to their retirement during this period. And once removed from athletic fields, pools or tracks, around the age of thirty (in the best case), they do not work enough years to be able to benefit from a full pension and many experience great economic difficulties throughout their lives, whether they manage to find a job quickly or not. To the point of sometimes regretting having given their body to sport for the influence of the nation.

This is the case of judokate Emilie Andéol, gold medalist at the Rio Olympics in 2016, who found herself unemployed at the end of her career and wondered if the game had been worth the candle. In 2015, a report by the Secretary of State for Sports Thierry Braillard estimated that "four out of ten high-level athletes earned less than 500 euros per month". Olympic medalist Robert Leroux (1996), who reconverted for a time in supporting high-level athletes after his career as a fencer, made the bitter observation: "Many confided in me that they ate pasta every night under penalty of not being able to finance their equipment, and they were Olympic medalists! ".

Always quick to recover the slightest success of our athletes on the international scene, politicians seem to be less concerned about the future of athletes once they retire. And it is not the current pension reform that will restore some fairness. "Far from being interested in their fate, the pension reform project defended by the government of Elisabeth Borne does not provide for any improvement or creation of a specific regime," write Pierre Rondeau and the co-director of the sports observatory, Richard Bouigue, on the website of the Jean Jaurès Foundation. Worse, it would risk further altering their situation: by raising the legal retirement age by two years, even for the long careers of those who would have started working before the age of twenty – which is the case for many athletes – we run the risk of keeping them longer in a condition of economic and social uncertainty before they can benefit from a retirement pension which, from a chopped quarry, will therefore be discounted. »


📝 On the eve of the #greve11fevrier against #ReformeDesRetraites, @RichardBouigue & @PierreR0ndeau propose ways to make the #retraite of high-level athletes fairer and more equitable: https://t.co/ydo7EAyOkI pic.twitter.com/c7peW94BAv

— Fondation Jean-Jaurès (@j_jaures) February 10, 2023

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For a specific diet for high-level athletes

It should be noted, however, that a system was introduced in 2012 by which the State undertakes to contribute in place of athletes, within the limit of four quarters per year and sixteen quarters in total, in order to compensate for the delay related to late entry into the labour market. Problems, the conditions to benefit from it are such that, according to Philippe Gonigam, the president of the National Union of high-level athletes quoted by Liberation, "this concerns only 500 athletes" of high level out of the 1,500 that counts the France in individual sport alone. In 2019, the same Philippe Gonigam already qualified the impact of this device, explaining that it remained "a conditioned retirement, well below what a normal employee can claim".

In addition, this system does not have retroactive effect and thus penalizes many former high-level athletes. As such, the deputy Modem of Morbihan and former skipper winner of the Transat AG2R, Jimmy Pahun, has tabled an amendment to the pension bill to allow all athletes on ministerial lists since 1984 to see their non-contributory quarters be compensated by the State, responding to a request from the Collective of French champions, who wrote an open letter to the President of the Republic to complain about this situation. For Robert Leroux, it is "neither more nor less than to demand equal treatment. The distinction made between athletes who represented the France team before or after 2012 seems to us to be totally unfair. »

"That the state puts this in place, it's a bare minimum, reacts Pierre Rondeau. But not considering top athletes in a specific diet remains a profound injustice." If he assures our colleagues of Liberation that "some deputies wish to seize the subject", Philippe Gonigam still regrets not having "heard of any specific measure" in the reform proposed by the government. And for good reason, there is none. "Unfortunately, for things to move, as we are in a kind of Republic of news items, we would have to see the problem factually via examples of Olympic medalists who find themselves in immense precariousness at the end of their careers," says Pierre Rondeau. Or that Kylian Mbappé joins the ranks of the CGT and demonstrates at the head of the procession Tuesday afternoon.

  • Sport
  • Pension reform 2023