The 21st NATIONAL CONFERENCE of the French Federation
The National Federation of Retired Staff from the French Group of Saving Banks held its 21st National Conference in DOURDAN, near Paris, on the 26, 27 and 28 of September 2008. The Conference was called by the Regional President Jean Claude MISSONIER -who regularly attends the Euromeetings.
The Executive Board and the Board of Director met on Friday and the General Assembly was held on the same day, with the participation of M. MAJSTER, advisor of the Board President of Saving Banks Group; M. TOURETZ, Executive Advisor, in charge of human resources management at the Caisses d'Epargne, Ile de France, Paris; M. GALPIN, President of Mutuelle santé (health insurance), Caisses d'Epargne; M. LELAY, General Director of Social Protection; and of the European Group President, José Roberto LOPEZ.
Were attending 150 delegates from 19 different regions, to represent the 4700 members affiliated to the Federation. During the two days, they mainly talked about Social Protection related issues, in a context of world economical crisis where insecurity prevails. They discussed about all that threatens pensions, health and citizenship. They focused on the following points:
Ø The financial stability of pension schemes at middle and long term, threatened by population ageing and the financial crisis.
Ø The pension reform (Fillon Law),to be introduced in 2008, could lead to the loss of some established rights, more particularly in the fields of family allowance for grown children and survivor's pension.
Ø The Complementary health insurance, and the concerns about how to finance the sickness insurance fund of french Social Security and the future of complementary health insurance.
Ø The citizenship of 12 millions retired french people. The delegates insisted once more on the presence and participation of retired people in all the bodies where the decisions related to them are taken.
Ø The participation of retired people to social life. Their place in a society of all ages was discussed, as well as the elaboration by the Caisse Nationale des Caisses d'Epargne (National Bank of Saving Banks) of several projects like management missions in firms or tutoring support provided by retired people from the Federation. On this issue, our President José LOPEZ gave some details about the current situation in Spain.
In his speech, the European Group President also shared some reflections about « Active Citizenship », and underlined that we are all active citizens since we are only « retired » from our professional life. We did not « retire from life » since we never renounced to permanent learning. We want and we can contribute to redraw the map of a modern society including current generations and generations to come.
He concluded his speech as follows: « let me express a thought, a feeling linked with love. Love is a passion for life, and we must love, we must be passioned by our activity, the one we want to carry out, the one that will make us feel alive. »
This General Assembly was marked by a feeling of concern about the financial crises and its consequencies on social security, mainly for the weakest and the poorest. The Assembly stressed once more her will to strengthen solidarity.
As far as the European Group is concerned: the motion of the resolutions unanimously accepted by the Assembly (this motion sets the aims of the Federation and the actions to be taken) refers to the fact that:
The Federation must get involve in the actions of the European Group, in order to promote solidarity between retired people, and take into consideration the main problems of health insurance, dependance and representativeness within a european social framework.
During the General Assembly, Our President José Roberto LOPEZ and the vice President Jean Claude CHRETIEN awarded the Tablet of Honor to our friend Jean VAURIOT.
