Thousands of French pensioners receive no payments for months

French Social Affairs Minister Marisol Touraine has announced emergency payments for thousands of pensioners who have been left penniless because their claims are logjammed thanks to a rise in new retirements in two regions of France.

Thousands of French pensioners are waiting for payments AFP/Jeff Pachoud

Pensioners who have not received payments for several months will receive payments of up to 800 euros and measures will be taken to speed up treatment of their claims, Touraine said on Thursday.

Thousands of elderly people are concerned by the special measure as they have been left with no pension for months.

The failure in the pension process is mainly reported in the nothern Nord-Picardie region and Languedoc-Roussillon in the south.

In both abnormal delays in handling pensions have been reported since 2013.

At least 6,000 elderly people have not received payments in Nord-Picardie since 2013 and "because of a lack of revenue, some of them had to request charity for the first time in their lives", said left-wing MP Michelle Demessine. 

Touraine said she has launched an "enhanced action plan" to tackle the failure in process and said that "thousands of claims" will be sent to other regions to be sorted out.

According to the national pension fund of Nord-Picardie, the delays resulted from an additionnal workload and no new hires.