TESTIMONY. “I only buy the bare minimum, I eat the leftovers”: Christine, like other retirees, struggles to make ends meet

With 960 euros per month, Christine, 64, has what is called a small pension. In her previous life, she was an animator in Paris, then a letter carrier in Auxerre, in Yonne, where she still lives. Christine retired at age 53, thanks to the old system of early departure for civil servants. She says she has no regrets, even though today she is in trouble. It is not the only one: faced with soaring consumer prices, many retirees are demanding that their pensions be revalued to the same level as inflation and a catch-up of their purchasing power lost for more than 10 years. They will also demonstrate in this direction Thursday, March 24 in twenty cities in France, including Paris, Marseille or Lyon. Christine now has to be careful with everything: “I only buy the bare minimum: I don’t take expensive meat, I’m careful to eat the leftovers. When I eat an apple, I eat it over two days” . “When I take a shower, the hot water doesn’t come right away so as not to waste water. I put a bucket under it and when it’s full, I use it to flush the toilet. water.” If Christine still manages to make ends meet, it’s because she lives as a couple: her companion receives a pension of 1,100 euros. She pays the bills, while he pays the rent. The other reason is that Christine has gone back to work: two odd jobs that bring her an extra 400 euros per month, excluding school holidays. “I went back to work in the school canteens with a little boy whom I take to school, says the retiree. It’s a lot of work and nervous fatigue. Especially at lunchtime: there is a lot of noise. ” “As the years progress, getting up in the morning at 5:45 a.m. is not easy. I am 64 years old: in two years maximum, I will stop working. And it will be much harder.” What makes Christine angry is that her pension does not increase with inflation, ie consumer prices. “Absolutely everything is increasing, she sighs. Pensions are increasing a little bit, but less quickly than inflation. So it ends up getting stuck. nothing. Before, I didn’t have to pay mutual insurance, for example.” Christine also feels stigmatized as a retiree: “We retirees are supposedly rich and we have money. And they come to ask us for money because we didn’t participate in the problem of financing with the Covid: I find this unacceptable.” The sexagenarian does not see which presidential candidate could improve the situation: “I don’t listen to the candidates too much, because I don’t think they take our situation into consideration.” Christine will participate in the demonstration in Dijon, Thursday March 24, 2022, to be heard. The testimony of Christine, retired. Report by Sarah Lemoine listen