‘Not just about pensions’: French protesters see threat to social justice in Macron’s reform

Though police and union figures differed, all agreed the number of demonstrators had increased compared to a first round of protests on January 19, piling pressure on a government that is struggling to convince voters of the need for a pension overhaul that includes raising the legal retirement age from 62 to 64.

In Paris, where an estimated half a million people took to the streets, tens of thousands of marchers were still waiting to set off as daylight faded on the sprawling place d’Italie, several hours after the event kicked off. Reflecting the extent of opposition to the reform, the mass rally included both veteran unionists and novices, young and old, including some who said they had never attended a protest before.

“I never used to protest, but this time the government is pushing too far,” said 58-year-old Geraldine, a lab technician at the nearby Pitié-Salpetrière hospital, who declined to give her full name.

“I’ve worked 38 years already, [Covid] pandemic included, and I’m absolutely exhausted,” she said. “It’s not just two more years that the government wants us to work. It’s two more years under ever worsening conditions – and at an age when most of us are no longer fit for the job.”

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Geraldine, who got her first full-time job aged 20 and later worked part-time to raise her daughter, ranks among the “losers” of the proposed pension overhaul, which would require her to work longer to qualify for a full pension.

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Talk of the reform’s gender imbalance has gained particular traction, not least since one of Macron’s own ministers admitted last week that it would “leave women a little penalised” – in one of several PR blunders that have marred the government’s attempts to promote its increasingly unpopular plan.

“We always knew women would get screwed – but the fact that they should admit it so casually, is simply baffling,” said 16-year-old Mia outside her high school in Paris, where students showed up at 6am in the morning hoping to blockade the building – only to find that riot police had got there first.

‘Not just about pension reform’

Macron has staked his reformist credentials on passage of his flagship pension overhaul, which polls say around two thirds of the French now oppose – a figure that has risen steadily in recent weeks.

“The more French people find out about the reform, the less they support it,” Frederic Dabi, a prominent pollster at the Ifop institute, told AFP. “This is not good at all for the government.”

While Macron and his government insist on the cost-cutting merits of their proposed reform, their opponents have succeeded in framing the debate in much larger terms, centred on the questions of how wealth is distributed under Macron, and whether the poorest will carry the burden of his proposals.

As 21-year-old protester Lalie Geffriaud put it at the rally in Paris, “It’s not just about pension reform – it’s about a broader opposition to the direction this country is taking.”

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The government says its proposals are necessary to keep the pension system solvent as the life expectancy of the French has grown and birth rates have declined. But unions and left-wing parties want big companies or wealthier households to pitch in more to balance the pension budget instead.

Adding to the government’s woes, its main argument was undercut earlier this month when the country’s independent Pension Advisory Council told parliament that “pension spending is not out of control – it’s relatively contained”. The assessment only strengthened a widely held belief that the reform demands unnecessary sacrifices of the French, at a time when they are grappling with an inflation crisis and still recovering from the Covid pandemic.

“This reform is entirely unnecessary – on top of being unfair,” said retired scientist Mireille Cuniot, 69, rallying on Tuesday with dozens of other women dressed as Rosie the Riveter in her iconic blue overalls.

She added: “It’s a reform that changes nothing for the highest earners and weighs entirely on the more vulnerable – you couldn’t make it any more unfair!”

Talk of the reform’s perceived inequity was a recurrent theme at the protest, which drew from well beyond the ranks of the left.

“It’s the unfairness that is most shocking; it’s always the working classes who end up paying most,” said primary school teacher Eric Schwab, who described himself as leaning to the centre-right. He held up a banner that read, “I refuse to waste my life trying to earn a living”.

Schwab took issue with the government’s habit of comparing France’s legal retirement age – one of the lowest in Europe – with that of its neighbours, noting that existing rules already require many French workers to retire well past the age of 62 in order to qualify for a full pension.

“They only compare us with other countries when it suits them,” he said. “What they won’t acknowledge, is that Germans who do the same job as me earn twice as much and with classes half the size.”

The proposed changes are about more than raising the retirement age, Schwab added, denouncing an “ultra-liberal” economic platform stacked in favour of the rich.

“After the financial crisis in 2008, governments somehow found billions of euros to bail out the banks,” he said. “They know where to find the money when they need to – particularly when it’s our money they’re spending.”