France has unveiled plans to gradually increase the retirement age from 62 to 64.
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne presented the pension reform on Tuesday, a key campaign promise of President Macron. Forty-three years of contributions are still necessary for a full pension. But the government wants to accelerate the pace by pushing back retirement by one quarter per year.
Result: it will be necessary to have contributed 43 years from 2027 instead of 2035.
Borne explained that the reform is necessary to ensure the survival of the system and will be implemented progressively until it is completed in 2030.
The trade unions are furious. They call the project “social regression” and an “unfair reform”, especially for those who started working early and the most vulnerable.
They reject the project outright and have been waiting for months for this announcement.
They have announced a day of strikes and demonstrations on the 19th of January. The unions assure that the mobilization will be the beginning of a series of measures to make the government give in.
However, President Macron has the backing of employers and the sympathy of conservative forces.
And everything points to an “explosive” social winter in France.
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