Why the French Are Angry About a Plan to Retire at 64

For more than a quarter of a century, there hasn’t been a French president who didn’t try to fix the country’s gigantic state pension system, and Emmanuel Macron is no exception. The 45-year-old leader, who was elected for a second five-year term in 2022, is trying to erase the system’s deficit and boost the economy by raising the minimum age to 64 from 62 for claiming a pension. And, like his predecessors, he is facing off against labor unions determined to thwart the changes using strikes and mass protests.

In terms of how it works, France’s public pension regime is hardly unique in Europe: Levies on workers and employers pay the pensions of the retired population. The problem is that French people spend less time working, and more time in retirement, than most of their European peers, leading to funding shortfalls that increase the public debt. And an aging population is making the problem worse. Without change, the national pension deficit could balloon to as much as 0.8% of annual economic output over the next decade, according to the country’s Pensions Advisory Council. That’s a liability the government can ill-afford in a country that already has one of the highest public debt burdens in Europe.