Hollande to Ask French to Work More as Pension Deficit Balloons

President Francois Hollande has an unpalatable message for the French: they need to work more.

Thirty-two years after France’s first Socialist President Francois Mitterrand cut the retirement age by five years, his party’s successor at the Elysee Palace is telling the French preserving their way of life means staying in jobs longer. Hollande’s government tomorrow kicks off three-month long talks with employer and employee groups to save a state pension system that last year lost 14 billion euros ($18 billion).