To the sound of strikes and demonstrations, as many as 38 since the beginning of December, French workers have prevailed: President Emmanuel Macron partially bowed to the incessant street protests and provisionally withdrew the provision of the pension reform which the unions liked least, namely the one on the minimum age to retire. The other point discussed was that of a single system, based on points, which would replace the current 42 special regimes. But the real crux was that of the retirement age, which in France is currently the lowest in Europe, set at 62 for most employees and which with the reform, which has been under discussion for a year and a half now, would in fact be raised to 64. The legal threshold would have remained at 62 years, but with a malus in the pay slip, effectively making it "advisable" to extend two more years to access full social security treatment.
The French Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, has therefore sent a letter to trade union and business organizations, in which he says he is "willing to withdraw" the 64-year threshold on a provisional basis, while maintaining the principle of a balanced age. "To demonstrate my trust in the social partners - Philippe wrote to the union leaders - and not prejudge the result of their work on the measures to be taken to achieve the 2027 balance, I am willing to withdraw the short-term measure from the bill term that I had proposed, consisting of gradually converging from 2022 towards an equilibrium age of 64 in 2027”. For comparison, in Germany the retirement age is 65 years and in a few years it will start at 67, in Italy it is 66 years, in Spain 65 years and 6 months, in Sweden 61 years which, however, can actually become 65.
