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PB July-August 2023 July-August 2023 71
them. Some see the opposition as reflexive post-
Revolution anti-establishment decadence: more
gilets jaunes-type oppositionalism. French angst.
The issue has been exploited over the years. The
reduction of the legal retirement age from 65 to
60 in 1983 – initiated by President Francois
Mitterrand in 1981 against all demographic
trends, and for political aims – exacerbated the
problem. Though that measure was reversed
further reform has been targeted as low-hanging
fruit for economic and social reform: the 35-hour-
week of its day.
However, critics say the reform is unfair for
workers in tough jobs who start their careers
early, as well as for women who may interrupt
their working lives to raise children. An article in
the newspaper Le Monde pointed out that many
inequalities will be deepened by this measure,
most particularly for women, mothers, and
working-class people. At 65 the life expectation
of people still varies between social classes: a
woman manager nowadays at age 35 would
expect to live until 88, which is 10.4 years more
than a working-class person.
Even if the reform is forced through, pension
problems will remain. The Work Minister, Olivier
Dussopt, admitted that the shortfall in retirement
funds will not be made up by 2030 even with the
new reform. Opponents of the reform consider
that the state of the national finances is the main
justification for this project, rather than making
a fairer and more dynamic retirement regime.
Protests have been held in every major city in
France against reform. Protests in January and
March were the biggest ever in France. The French
government said a total of only 281,000 people
took to the streets across France for a
demonstration in early June, well belowthe figure
of 782,000 for the protests on May 1.
The government is confidently betting that the
pot-banging protestors will eventually get tired
and is determined to apply this reform. In 1995,
when Jacques Chirac tried similar reforms,
crippling strikes made him shelve the project and
18 months later France mobilised to vote out his
Prime Minister, Alain Juppé. In 2006 countrywide
protests forced Dominique de Villepin, a later
Chirac prime minister, to revoke new labour rules
for young people even after they had become law.
Macron has staked his future and his reputation
on being a counter to these historical faiblesses.
It is another battle between reform and solidarité.
Macron will win it.
presidential campaign debate in 2017, an
insurgent Macron promised he would not push
back the retirement age.
The Prime Minister activated article 49.3 which
allows a reform or law to be passed without a vote
of The Assembly. Two motions failed to get the
required votes with one from the centrist LIOT
rejected by only nine votes.
France spends 14% of its GDP on public
pensions, nearly double the OECD average. That
is a drain on an already undynamic economy. The
population is ageing due to longer life expectancy
which is up by 12 years since the 1960s, falling
birthrates since the 1970s and the retirement of
baby boomers. The number of current
contributors for one pensioner in France has
shrunk from four in the 1960s to 1.7 now.
Clearly, all things being equal, reform could
favour the younger generation, already
beleaguered by climate, housing and
generational wealth iniquities. Yet in France the
younger generation side with their vested seniors
in opposing a reform that would tend to benefit
F
rance has broiled again in recent
months in opposition to reform of the
retirement age introduced by Prime
Minister Elisabeth Borne in a
December 2022 press conference
According to the ocial website of the Elysée,
the reform should only bring positive changes to
the working lives of French people. The retirement
age will be “progressively” delayed from the
current 62 starting in September this year:
reaching 63 years old and three months by the
end of 2027, and 64 in 2030. People with “long
careers” who started working young can retire at
60 under certain conditions. In Ireland, for
comparison, the State retirement age is 66.It was
set to rise to 67 in 2021 before the coalition
government reversed the change.
The French reform is claimed to safeguard
retirement funding for those who need it. Under
France’s ‘PAYGO’ system, present private-sector
pensioners receive payments from current
workers’ contributions, collected via payroll
taxes.
People will have to work 43 years to obtain full-
time retirement pay. The ending of specific
retirement arrangements like the ones concerning
the abrasive rail, bus, electricity and gas
industries has been one of the most contested
aspects of the reform.
This change was viciously opposed by political
parties, from the left and right. A lot of French
people objected to the fact that, during the
The number of current contributors for one
pensioner in France has shrunk from four
in the 1960s to 1.7 now, so the retirement
age will be “progressively” delayed from
the current 62 to 64 in 2030. In Ireland, for
comparison, the State retirement age is 66
Pension protests, Pris: plling
Between allegedly
progressive reform
and solidarity
France finds another pot-bangers’ crisis
By J Vivian Cooke
INTERNATIONAL
