French politics
Hundreds of thousands of French are on strike against a higher retirement age
Of:
Johanna Fränden
Published: Less than 10 min ago
NEWS
PARIS.
Work to live, or live to work?
Today, hundreds of thousands of French people are going on strike against Emmanuel Macron´s pension reform with a raised retirement age from 62 to 64.
- This is not a reform, it is a crime, says Boris, a 45-year-old teacher who is on strike and demonstrating at the Place de la République today.
It has been announced in advance as the biggest strike in over 25 years in a country where strikes are part of the cityscape after all.
The mobilization of all eight major unions in France this January Thursday shows exactly how unpopular Emmanuel Macron's pension reform is.
In Paris, many schools are closed, public transport runs very sparingly and most train departures are cancelled, to name a few.
At the Place de la République stands "Brouck", 62, which is something as French as a satirist on strike.
On the table he has set up, you can buy drawings and comic albums with anti-capitalist messages. "We must kill Macron before he kills us" is the title of one of the books he sells.
- This government has not made any social reforms since they took office. It is the government of the rich, they show that time and time again, says "Brouck", who despite this does not have very high hopes that today's exercises will get the government to change plans.
- They pretend to listen to the people, it's a kind of diplomatic image that never means anything in the end.
The reform proposal is to be debated and voted on in the National Assembly in the coming weeks and Macron and his Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, who is behind the design, look right now to be able to secure majority support for it with the help of members of the right-wing party Les Républicains.
Cartoonist Bourck, 62 years old. Photo: NIKOLAI JAKOBSEN
Hundreds of thousands of French participate in the strike. Photo: NIKOLAI JAKOBSEN
Different view of work
To Swedish ears, the French president's reform does not sound particularly controversial: Raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 in a welfare state where the population is getting older and the pension system has been going backwards for a long time.
The fact is that Germany, Italy, Spain and Great Britain have in recent years clubbed through raised retirement ages of 67 and 68 respectively. What do four out of five French people, if the opinion polls are to be believed, turn against? How can they be so stubborn?
There are, in short, two reasons. The first is that the French view of work is significantly different from most countries in Europe, if not the world. Since 2000, the country has had a statutory 35-hour week for full-time employees (many workplaces have longer hours than that, but then pay overtime compensation).
As recently as 2012, François Hollande promised in his presidential election campaign to lower the retirement age from 62 to 60.
Incidentally, it was his nemesis Nicolas Sarkozy who raised it by two years during his term of office at the time, a very controversial move even then.
10,000 police are monitoring the demonstrations in France. Photo: NIKOLAI JAKOBSEN
Prohibits managers from making contact
French people are simply used to not working very much of their lives. The idea that free time is more important than career is dominant in a way that is sometimes hard to imagine as a Swede.
For several years now, there have been laws that prohibit managers from contacting their employees after working hours and on days off, all to reduce stress in everyday life. "Should one live to work, or work to live?" is a rhetorical question often heard in the debate during the winter.
The second reason, and perhaps the most important right now, is the experience that the pension reform hits the working class and the "modest" middle class hardest.
In addition to working until the age of 64, one must also have completed 43 years of work according to the new pension proposal. In his column in the newspaper Le Monde the other week, the star economist of the French left, Thomas Piketty, thundered that everyone can calculate that those with five years of university studies must work until the age of 64-65 in order to reach up to 43 years of professional work, while those who started working immediately after high school "punished" with two extra years at the end of the career. He's not wrong, of course.
Pierre, 61, is one of the protesters. Photo: NIKOLAI JAKOBSEN
"It's a crime"
The fact that the reform is to be hammered out in a situation where both inflation and prices are shining makes the matter extra delicate.
- This is not a reform, it is a crime, says Boris, 45, who is a teacher and will join the demonstration train that starts from the Place de la République.
- The poor French will be dead before they can retire. I'm striking in solidarity with them today, but I also don't see myself running after children when I'm 66, says Boris.
Between 35 and 45 percent of French teachers are on strike today and office workers are being asked to work from home as much as possible.
Place de la République starts to fill up with people on the gray January afternoon. There has been talk of a mobilization on a par with the 1996 general strike, the law enforcement's forecasts speak of upwards of a million French people on the streets. It is the day of the French trade unions, but both the French left-wing parties and the far-right National Assembly support the initiative.
For Emmanuel Macron, the pension reform is a matter of his entire political prestige.
- Things must be clear when the democratic elections are held. And when the presidential and subsequent parliamentary elections were held just a few months ago, these things were clear. Now begins a period when the democratic parliamentary work takes place, where all political forces within the National Assembly and the Senate have the opportunity to express themselves, says the French President, who is in Spain on Thursday to meet the country's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
Charlie, 15. Photo: NIKOLAI JAKOBSEN
I don't think the reform will happen
Emmanuel Macron was warned of the anger of the French working class when he wanted to raise the tax on car fuel in 2018 and the Yellow Vests movement saw the light of day. But apart from that particular idea having to be scrapped, the prolonged protests had little effect.
France's wealthiest have declined in terms of income during Macron's time in power. As recently as a few weeks ago, businessman Bernard Arnault, owner of luxury brands such as Moët & Chandon and Louis Vuitton, took over the position of the world's richest man from Elon Musk. It is unusual for a European to hold the title, not least given France's traditionally high tax burden, but the Macron government's corporate tax reform and abolition of wealth tax have had an impact.
- We are striking to instead lower the general retirement age to 60 years and to 55 years for those with the heaviest duties, says Maryse Treton, 63, local secretary of the CGT, one of France's two largest trade unions.
She is sure that the reform will not go away.
- It will not go through, I can guarantee that. 80 percent of the French are against it. In addition, there are certain figures that indicate that the system is not going backwards at all.
But haven't the French actually voted for the pension reform? Yes, and no. Emmanuel Macron was clear about his intentions to raise the retirement age during both the first and second presidential campaigns, in 2017 and 2022, respectively.
"Stop the nonsense!"
In the final round against the far-right's Marine Le Pen on both occasions, many trade unions recommended their voters vote for the centrist candidate Macron, in a kind of choice between plague and cholera. At the same time, demonstrations were organized against the pension reform as soon as the presidential election was decided. In 2020, Macron himself canceled the plans temporarily when the corona pandemic paralyzed France.
It is thus possible to say with some right that Macron has the mandate to now implement the reform he has always been open about before the voters. But a look at the opinion polls and at the Place de la République shows something completely different.
At 3 p.m. it starts to fill up with people. Among hot dog stalls, martial music in loudspeakers and book tables, the kilometer-long march towards the Place de la Nation in eastern Paris begins to take shape.
10,000 police and gendarmes have been called in for today's general strike in France, of which 3,500 are in Paris. Around 5 p.m., around thirty police interventions are reported in Paris and riots in Rennes, among other places.
Charlie Perrin, 15, hasn't started working yet, but has a message to pass on to Macron:
- Stop with this nonsense!
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