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Since the French pension reform enacted in 2003, recent trends in work-retirement combination patterns, the creation of premiums and decreasing penalties reflect a declared determination to promote employment of the elderly and to enable them to choose freely between retiring and continuing their activity. The first available results concerning general pension scheme affiliates who resume a salaried activity show that such combinations are still limited, affecting only around 5 % of the country’s new retirees. This population is characterized by longer insurance periods, favourable late-career employment situations but also, in some cases, greater difficulties during their working life, and a higher number of non-married persons. Encouraging retirees to resume a professional activity challenges the very purpose of retirement today. It also raises the issue of windfall benefits enjoyed by certain pensioners and of the ensuing cost for pension schemes.