In many cities of France another day of large protests and strikes against the pension reform is underway, after those that had already been organized on January 19th. 250 different demonstrations were organized across the country, after discussion of the disputed law began in parliament on Monday: the main provision of the law, and the one that has created the most discontent, provides for the raising of the retirement age from 62 to 64 years.
The goal that the organizers of the demonstrations have set is to exceed the participation of January 19, even if it will be very difficult: in that case 1.12 million people had participated according to the authorities and over 2 million for the organizers. However, there are cities where a greater presence of people has already been recorded than last time: in Marseille, for example, there are 40 thousand, according to the prefecture, which on 19 January had recorded 26 thousand (the numbers given by the trade unions, on the other hand, are very taller).
The Associated Press reported protests even on the very small island of Ouessant, with a few hundred inhabitants, in northwestern France off the coast of Brittany: about a hundred people gathered in a procession in front of the mayor’s office.
It is still difficult to make a precise assessment of the many inconveniences caused by the strikes, but some are already evident: the National Railway Company (SNFC) had announced cancellations on the whole line from the previous days, advising passengers to postpone the trips they had planned and commuters to work from home if they could. The CGT, one of the largest union confederations in the country, has announced between 75 and 100 percent of strikers at oil company TotalEnergies’ refineries and distributors. Électricité de France (EDF), the main company that produces and distributes energy in the country, has announced that just over 40 percent of its employees are on strike (44.5 percent on January 19).
The government does not seem to have suffered the pressure of the protests: on Monday, President Emmanuel Macron reiterated that the reform is “essential”, while Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said over the weekend that raising the pension to 64 years “is no longer negotiable”.
In addition to raising the retirement age, the bill provides for the anticipation from 2035 to 2027 of the so-called “Touraine” law, which increases the period for which it is necessary to pay contributions to retire by one year, and the abolition of some special pension schemes, among a number of other measures.
It is yet another pension reform proposed by a French government, and Macron himself had already tried it in 2019, causing large and participatory protests in that case too. Several analysts believe that the French pension system is overly complicated, inefficient and unfair.
In France, there are 42 different pension schemes, with considerable differences in the benefits and treatments of the individual categories. The pension system is also very expensive: in 2020 it cost the equivalent of 13.6 percent of GDP, less than the Italian one proportionally (15.6 percent of GDP), but still more than in most European countries . According to official estimates and forecasts, the French system may not be sustainable in the long term and risk returning to a deficit (as happened in 2020, the last time).
The reasoning behind the measures proposed in the bill would mainly be to spend less on pensions: raising the retirement age would delay, for example, the disbursement of the pension allowance. Similarly, extending the period in which contributions have to be paid would serve to make the pension system more sustainable for state finances.
Macron’s bill is mainly supported by the center-right, and is highly contested by both the left and the far right, who consider it unfair especially for middle-class workers and the poorest sections of the population.
