Citizens protest against proposed increase of French retirement age

Over a million people took to the streets in France in late January to protest a proposed rise in retirement age. Macron is standing by the proposal. Photo courtesy of Jaroslaw Baranowski via Wikimedia Commons.

By Sophie Glasco ’26

Staff Writer

More than one million protesters flooded the streets of France in late January, protesting against proposed retirement reforms by President Emmanuel Macron. The proposal looks to increase France’s legal retirement age from 62 to 64 in order to maintain the public-funded retirement pensions, a strongly unpopular decision, as polls reflect two-thirds of French people opposing the reform. According to French authorities, 1.2 million people protested on Jan. 31, while labor unions claim the number was closer to 2.5 million. Regardless, over one million people took part in the protest, with eight key unions represented in the strike, affecting schools, public transport and oil refineries. According to the BBC, 11,000 police were deployed to cover demonstrations in over 200 French cities. 

Assistant Professor of International Relations and Politics Christopher Mitchell provided some context for the protests: “[A] long history of state ownership in France means that public protest has generally been a very effective way for labor to make its demands felt, as if the government owns key firms, pressuring elected officials can be as important as pressuring the management of the firm.” 

The New York Times explained the French retirement system as “a pay-as-you-go structure in which workers and employers are assessed mandatory payroll taxes that are used to fund retiree pensions.” With the proposed reforms, the system will still exist, but workers must work until age 64. The reforms would also accelerate a previous change in the minimum number of years one must work in order to pay into the retirement benefits. 

Opponents of the legislation argue that Macron is attacking cherished retirement rights and refusing to look at other options, such as raising taxes on the wealthy. Critics also feel that the reforms target blue-collar workers, who begin careers sooner but have shorter life expectancies compared to white-collar workers, according to The New York Times. 

However, President Macron is firm in backing his proposal, as the bill is heading to Parliament, where Macron’s party has a small majority and therefore a “legislative showdown” is expected. According to the BBC, “[w]ithout a majority in parliament, the government will have to rely on the right-wing Republicans for support as much as the ruling parties’ own [members of parliament].” 

The problem lies with a declining birth rate for the last few decades in France and other Western European countries, and thus fewer working-age people to support a larger generation of retirees in the coming decades. Mitchell explained the implications of the decline, stating, “[t]his means that inevitably either taxes will need to be raised on younger workers to support the existing level of benefits or benefits will need to be cut, or of course some mix of the two that will be popular with nobody.” Beyond the issue of taxes, France also has a notably lower retirement age than other European countries, with Italy, Germany and Spain looking to raise their retirement age to 67, as well as the United Kingdom at 66. “Given that you can qualify for state pensions considerably earlier in France than most other advanced democracies, Macron has proposed raising the pension age as an alternative to either raising taxes or cutting benefits,” Mitchell explained. 

The French government and the French citizens are each stubbornly defending their side, with neither showing signs of backing down. The protesters have history supporting them, though, as Mitchell explained that “France also has a long history of mass mobilization and protest more generally, as can be seen in the First and Second French Revolutions.”