Emmanuel Macron’s government presented a plan to gradually raise France’s minimum retirement age to 64 by 2030 from 62, sparking anger among labor unions who immediately called for strikes to protest the reform, reports Yahoo! News.
Making the French work longer is essential to boost relatively low employment rates among seniors and avoid persistent deficits in a public system funded by worker contributions, the president has argued. Labor organizations say it will unfairly penalize the low-skilled and least wealthy who began working early in life.
“The pension system is not in danger, nothing justifies such a brutal reform,” Laurent Berger, the head of the moderate CFDT union, said alongside leaders of other labor organizations following a meeting in Paris.
Prime minister Élisabeth Borne told a news conference earlier on Tuesday she was aware the reform raises fears but said that it was “a plan of fairness, a plan that brings social progress.”
The unions called for a first day of strikes and demonstrations on Jan. 19 and said this was the beginning of a “strong mobilization.”
The showdown around what French officials have dubbed “the mother of all reforms” is set to be a defining moment in Macron’s second five-year term as French leader.
If the 45-year-old forges ahead, he’ll likely face the kind of paralyzing upheaval that accompanied — and sometimes defeated — his predecessors’ attempts to alter laws affecting labor and retirement. If he backs down, it would undermine his decade-long drive to drag France through a pro-business transformation.