At the beginning of 2023, French President Emmanuel Macron gave a "big gift" to the French people, determined to reform the costly and intricate French pension system, and the core of the reform is to extend the retirement age of French people from the current 62 to 64 years old.
This unwelcome "gift" was naturally mercilessly rejected by the French. Since January 19, France has begun a huge strike protest, each strike can reach the scale of millions of people, and month after month, such as three rounds of general strikes in January, February is also three rounds, although March has not yet arrived, but the national general strike has been arranged, set for March 7.
The demands of the French strikers were clear: they should not retire late. If the French government does not budge, they intend to continue to confront the government. After all, in the history of France, there have been real reforms of the pension system that were forced by strikes.
With so much resistance to reform, why did Macron move this difficult bone? How hard is France's pension system to shake?
Since Macron became president of France in 2017, changing France's pension system has become a difficult problem for him to overcome, and the idea of retiring the French at 65 was just taking shape in 2019, but was stopped by weeks of strikes and the ensuing coronavirus pandemic.
Although the plan was put on hold for three years, Macron did not intend to give up and decided to put it into action in 2023, but in order to make the reform smooth and smooth, Macron made concessions.
The French government decided to extend the legal retirement age of 62 by three months every year from September 1, 2023, and by 2030, it will retire at 64, instead of the 65 originally planned, which is a concession. At the same time, retired French people must pay at least 43 years to receive a full pension, an increase of 1.5 years from the current rule.
In the EU countries, except for France, there is no country that retires as "early" as 62, and the retirement age in most EU countries is still increasing year by year. In 2022, the retirement age is 65 in Germany and Hungary, 66 in Spain and Portugal, and 67 in Italy, Greece and Denmark.
Therefore, Macron told the French, retirement, we still have a lot of room for improvement.
Of course, this reason alone is not convincing. Therefore, Macron also let the French know that if they continue to retire so early, then France's pension will be in deficit from 2023, and as the aging population intensifies and the number of births decreases year by year, the pension gap will become larger and larger.
To be more convincing, the French government also gave predictions that the pension deficit will reach 12.4 billion euros in 2027, 13.5 billion euros in 2030 and 21.2 billion euros in 2035.
In the view of the Macron government, in the long run, the French pension system will be in jeopardy, and France's fiscal revenue and expenditure will be seriously imbalanced, affecting the future of the country. To avoid this, Macron's government is determined to carry on the reforms.
However, it is not easy for the French government to make a move on the pension system. This time, Macron's reform plan was opposed by two-thirds of the French.
In fact, due to the consideration of aging and low birth rate, most countries in the European Union have successively increased the retirement age in the past decade, and there have been basically no popular strikes, but France is completely different.
In 1995, the French government wanted to reform the pension system, but encountered a nationwide general strike, which paralyzed French traffic for a month, and finally the government was forced to give up.
In 2010, when French President Nicolas Sarkozy planned to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62, the French went on strike, and although the government finally achieved reforms, this became one of the reasons why Sarkozy was not re-elected as president of France.
In 2019, Macron intends to continue raising the retirement age, which is followed by another strike. If it were not for the outbreak of the epidemic, the reform plan and the general strike were put on hold, and the confrontation between the two sides does not know what the outcome will be, and it is difficult to say whether Macron will be re-elected in 2022.
So it's hard not to wonder why the French are so resistant to late retirement.
The French have long been accustomed to the comfortable life of short working hours, long paid holidays and early retirement, and it has become a natural habit for those who are spoiled to refuse what makes him feel uncomfortable.
Since 2000, France has explicitly stipulated that the working hours should not exceed 35 hours a week, and if the work is overtime, then the holiday compensation must be used. Moreover, France has a minimum of 11 consecutive hours of work per day. Yes, no work!
In addition, every year in July and August, the French also "have" to take three weeks off, because it is also mandatory. In addition to public holidays, French people get at least one month of paid vacation every year.
For the hardcore attitude of the French to strictly abide by the pension system, former French President François Mitterrand is also "contributed", because he pioneered the retirement age of French people from 65 to 60 in 1983.
Such a beautiful thing as early retirement fell from the sky, and the French certainly had to protect it.
The French pension system is such a difficult bone to gnaw, Macron just wants to gnaw down, the difficulty can be imagined, but success is not impossible.
After all, Sarkozy successfully gnawed this bone in 2010, although he was affected by this and was not re-elected. But Macron has been re-elected as president, and according to the French constitution, the president can only be re-elected once, so he can give it a go.
Macron's current obstacles are not only opposition from the French public, but also the support of other parties to ensure that the reform plan is approved and implemented by the French parliament.
However, the pension system has more than just the retirement age, there are other elements that can be negotiated and compromised. To appease opponents, Macron's government has added new reforms, such as increasing the minimum pension from the current of about 6,700 yuan (916 euros) a month to about 8,800 yuan (1,200 euros).
In France, the minimum pension does not require "prepayment" from beneficiaries, all borne by the French government, and is aimed at low-income elderly people over 65 years old, regardless of whether they have a pension, as long as the conditions are met, they can get this part of the money.
Although Macron's government's concessions have not yet had immediate results, after all, the French are still on strike, but the number of people in the latest round has been reduced by hundreds of thousands. Although the March strike is scheduled, the number is expected to continue to shrink.
And look at this long game, who is the final winner.