Huge crowds marched across France on Tuesday in a new round of protests against President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to raise the retirement age, signaling the opposition’s success in shaping the pension debate as part of a broader fight against an economic platform they perceive as unfair.
Although police and union statements differed, all agreed that the number of protesters had increased compared to a first round of protests on January 19, putting pressure on a government struggling to dissuade voters from the need for pension reform to convince that includes an increase in statutory pensions from age 62 to 64.
In Paris, where an estimated half a million people took to the streets, tens of thousands of protesters were still waiting several hours after the event began to set off as daylight faded across the sprawling Place d’Italie. The mass rally reflected the level of opposition to reform and included both veteran unionists and novices, young and old, including some who said they had never attended a demonstration before.
“I’ve never protested before, but this time the government is going too far,” said 58-year-old Geraldine, a laboratory technician at nearby Pitié-Salpetrière hospital, who declined to give her full name.
“I’ve worked for 38 years [Covid] Pandemic included and I’m absolutely exhausted,” she said. “The government doesn’t just want us to work for two more years. It’s two more years of deteriorating conditions – and at an age when most of us are no longer fit for the job.”
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People like Geraldine, who got her first full-time job aged 20 and later worked part-time to raise her daughter, have the most to lose from proposed reform, which would require them to work longer to be eligible for a full pension to have.
The same goes for unskilled workers like Ayed, a stock controller at a local supermarket, who wore the red vest of the Force Ouvrière union as he marched through Paris. “I’m 42 and I’ve had heavy loads on my back all day – how am I going to keep going in 20 years?” he asked.
>> “I can’t take it anymore”: The French working class bemoans Macron’s move to raise the retirement age
The government has signaled there is room for maneuver on some measures as parliamentary committees begin examining the draft law this week. But promises to improve conditions for people who started working at a very young age, or for mothers who have put their careers on hold to look after their children, could reduce the perception of a reform that harms the most vulnerable not balance.
Talk of the text’s gender imbalance has particularly gained traction, not least since one of Macron’s own ministers admitted last week that it would “put women at a little disadvantage” – in one of several PR blunders that underscored the government’s attempts , planning to promote his increasingly unpopular text.
“We always knew women get screwed — but the fact that they would so casually admit that is just mind boggling,” 16-year-old Mia said outside her high school in Paris, where students showed up at 6 a.m. hoping to being able to blockade the building – only to find the riot police got there first.
Elsewhere, students managed to occupy a handful of schools and university buildings, while a nationwide strike backed by all of France’s major unions has disrupted public transport and oil refineries, with more strikes expected in the coming days and weeks.
“Unnecessary and Unfair”
Macron has placed his reformist credentials on passing his flagship pension reform, which polls now say around two-thirds of French people oppose – a figure that has been rising steadily in recent weeks.
“The more French people hear about the reform, the less they support it,” Frederic Dabi, a prominent pollster at the Ifop Institute, told AFP. “It’s not good for the government at all.”
While Macron and his government insist on the cost-cutting benefits of their proposed reform, their opponents have managed to make the debate much broader, focusing on the questions of how the wealth will be shared under Macron and whether the poorest will bear the burden of his Suggestions.
“The pension plan is both regressive in terms of quality of life and economically unfair – which means that it is fundamentally at odds with our vision,” argued Sophia Chikirou, an MP for the left-wing France Unbowed (LFI) party, at the Paris rally .
As 21-year-old protester Lalie Geffriaud put it, “It’s not just about pension reform — it’s about broader opposition to the direction this country is taking.”
>> Will strikes force Macron to back down on French pension reform?
The government says its proposals are necessary to keep the pension system solvent as French life expectancy has increased and birth rates have fallen. But unions and left-wing parties want big companies or wealthier households to get involved instead to balance the pension budget.
Adding to the government’s concerns, its main argument was undermined earlier this month when the country’s independent Pensions Advisory Council told Parliament that “pension spending is not getting out of hand – it’s relatively contained”. The assessment only reinforced widespread belief that the reform will make unnecessary sacrifices for the French at a time when they are grappling with an inflationary crisis and still recovering from the Covid pandemic.
“This reform is completely unnecessary – apart from being unfair,” said retired scientist Mireille Cuniot, 69, who gathered Tuesday with dozens of other women dressed as Rosie the Riveter in her iconic blue jumpsuits.
She added: “It’s a reform that changes nothing for the highest earners and takes full responsibility for the weakest – it doesn’t get any more unjust!”
Protesters dressed as feminist icon Rosie the Riveter at the Paris rally. © Benjamin Dodman, FRANCE 24
Talk of the perceived injustice of the reform was a recurring theme at the protest, which extended well beyond the ranks of the left.
“It is the injustice that is most shocking; it’s always the working class that ends up paying the most,” said elementary school teacher Eric Schwab, who described himself as a center-right supporter. He held up a banner that read, “I refuse to waste my life making a living”.
Schwab criticized the government’s habit of comparing France’s statutory retirement age – one of the lowest in Europe – to that of its neighbors, noting that many French workers would have to retire at as early as 62 to be eligible for a retirement age full pension.
“They only compare us to other countries when it suits them,” he said. “What they don’t recognize is that Germans who do the same job as me earn twice as much and with classes half the size.”
The proposed changes go beyond raising the retirement age, Schwab added, condemning an “ultra-liberal” economic platform in favor of the wealthy.
“After the 2008 financial crisis, governments somehow raised billions of euros to bail out the banks,” he said. “They know where to find the money when they need it — especially when it’s our money they’re spending.”
Macron’s critics accuse him of advocating the same neoliberal agenda as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. © Benjamin Dodman, FRANCE 24