French Strikes Cut Support for Pension Plan

PARIS -- Continuing strikes are eroding parliamentary support for French President Emmanuel Macron's proposed pension overhaul, with workers staging a new walkout that snarled traffic, canceled trains and shut schools across the country.

For the third time in three weeks, teachers, bus drivers, nurses, oil-refinery workers and others staged union-led strikes on Tuesday aimed at forcing the government to reverse course on its plan to raise the retirement age to 64 by 2030 from 62. About 757,000 people took to the streets in demonstrations against the proposed overhaul that sprawled over dozens of cities and towns including Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, the French interior ministry said.

Behind the strikes are debates over how best to save the retirement system in a country where people have for decades expected to be finished with their careers and to be caring for grandchildren while they were still in their early 60s. The retirement age in France remains lower than in most other European countries. Italians can stop working at 67 while workers in the U.K. retire at 66.

"Life is not just about work," said Ann-Gael Laine, a 44-year-old engineer who attended a recent protest in Paris. "I would like to take care of my grandchildren. That's another way of contributing to society."

Ms. Laine isn't alone. A survey of 1,100 people by polling firm Ipsos on Feb. 1 and Feb. 2 showed 69% of French people support the strikes against the proposed pension overhaul, compared with 59% three weeks earlier.

The underlying problem is demographics. In France, current workers pay for retirees' government pensions. As people live longer and the population grows older, the ratio of workers to retirees has decreased, putting the system under growing financial stress. Parties on the left say it isn't urgent to shore up deficits and call for higher payroll taxes on employers to make up the difference. Mr. Macron's government says people should work longer to put the system on better footing.

"We are asking French people for a collective effort. I understand it provokes reactions, reluctance and concerns," Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said in an interview with weekly Le Journal du Dimanche on Sunday. "But our main goal is to ensure the future of our pension system," she said.

The specter of a continuing labor movement -- with another national protest set for Saturday -- is putting pressure on Mr. Macron to hang on to every vote he can muster to push his overhaul through Parliament.

A handful of lawmakers from Mr. Macron's party, Renaissance, and its centrist allies are threatening to vote against the pension bill as the protest movement gains momentum.

Meanwhile, conservative party Les Republicains remains divided over the proposed measures, with some members tacking to the left of Mr. Macron and demanding more exceptions to the retirement-age increase. Without their support, Mr. Macron, who no longer has a majority in the National Assembly, won't have the votes to pass his pension overhaul -- one of the main planks of his campaign platform when he was re-elected in April.

"Behind the numbers, there are men and women -- the middle and working classes that pay a high price for your bookkeeping reform," said Fabrice Brun, a Les Republicains lawmaker, who on Monday in Parliament backed a far-left motion to reject the overhaul. The motion failed.

Overall, given staunch opposition from left-leaning and far-right parties, Mr. Macron can't afford to lose the votes of much more than 20 centrist and center-right lawmakers such as Mr. Brun out of 577 in France's National Assembly." [1]

Why do we in Europe like to elect clerks from the banks as our presidents (Macron in France, Nausėda in Lithuania)? Do we think that they have some magic to produce money out of thin air? They were and remain servants of the banks. They do everything to increase the profits of the banks. They do not care about our life. So the banks are OK, thank you very much. We are not OK.

1. World News: French Strikes Cut Support for Pension Plan
Bisserbe, Noemie.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 08 Feb 2023: A.16.