PARIS, Sept 12 (Reuters) - The French government said on Sunday a planned pension reform would penalise companies which pay their female employees less than their male peers, as it steps up a campaign to defend the controversial overhaul. Labour Minister Eric Woerth, the architect of the reform which prompted a national strike earlier this week, rejected criticism that it discriminated against women by forcing them to work longer than male counterparts to gain the necessary years of social security payments.
He said the reform would compensate women who took maternity leave with two year of additional pension payments.
"The problem is not the length of payments as far as women are concerned, the problem is salaries: the wages of women are lower than those men who do the same job," Woerth told Europe 1 radio. "That is an insult to democracy and our social model."
"In the text (of this reform), we have decided to fine companies which differentiate between the salaries of men and women by up to 1 percent of their payroll," the minister said.
Woerth said unions and the opposition Socialist party were deluding voters by saying a planned increase in the minimum retirement age to 62 from 60 could be avoided.
The government has said that without an increase in the retirement age, France's pension system will lose 45 billion euros ($57.1 billion) a year by 2020.
France's unions held a national strike on Tuesday and have convened a new protest for Sept. 27 to force changes to the reform, but President Nicolas Sarkozy's government has refused to abandon the rise the pensionable age.
"The French know that we have to reform the pension system," Woerth told Europe 1. "The unions say that we should reform pensions without raising the retirement age, but in all the countries of the world they have done that."
Woerth's defence of his reform has been hobbled by an investigation into his alleged involvement in illegal political funding. On Sunday, he again denied any wrongdoing and said he had no plans to resign, as unions have demanded. (Reporting by Daniel Flynn; Editing by David Holmes) ($1=.7886 Euro)