Return on French people’s savings (pension and financial): The coming disaster

French people’s savings primarily take two forms: Retirement savings, which are the pension rights accumulated in the pay-as-you-go system; the real return on pay-as-you-go pension savings equals potential growth corrected for population ageing, i.e. -0.6% per year from 2020 to 2040; Financial savings, which are largely held in the form of life insurance (euro funds), i.e. in bonds, with an expected real return of -1.0% per year from 2020 to 2040. These choices ( pay-as-you-go , savings in bonds) will therefore lead to a "disaster": a negative real return on French people’s savings in a broad sense: they will pay a high price for rejecting a funded system and savings invested in equities.