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Macron plans to raise French retirement age to 65

Emmanuel Macron plans to raise the retirement age in France to 65 if he is elected for a second term, government spokesman Gabriel Attal has confirmed, reopening a contentious issue that sparked widespread strikes in 2019.

Published: 10 March 2022 10:42 CET

Macron plans to raise French retirement age to 65

Pensions have been the cause of numerous protests in France in recent years, including this one in October 2021 in Bordeaux. (Photo: Philippe Lopez / AFP)

The president had declared in December that he wanted the French to “work longer”, and has repeated the message twice, firstly in his open letter to the French people in which he finally declared his candidacy for the Elysée, and secondly at a meeting involving a number of elected officials who had signed letters of sponsorship in his favour to allow him to run for a second term.

According to one person at that meeting, Macron said that he intended to bring “an ambitious pension reform for a social model that holds, […] but which also requires an investment for solidarity between generations and a project for the ‘autonomy’.”

And Attal confirmed the progressive pull back of the retirement age in an interview on RTL this morning.

🔴 #Retraite : Emmanuel #Macron proposera dans son programme un report progressif à 65 ans, confirme @GabrielAttal dans #RTLMatin avec @VenturaAlba ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/Zxm1jyXeJv

— RTL France (@RTLFrance) March 10, 2022

The current official retirement age in France is 62, although workers in many industry including train drivers have ‘special regimes’ that allow them to retire earlier, in some cases from 55.

During his first term, Macron proposed a reform that simplified the system and got rid of the special regimes. Retirement age remained at 62, although a full pension was only granted from 64.

Approved by Parliament despite two months of protests and strikes in 2019, the changes were in the end not rolled out because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

But now-candidate Macron is set to push on with his plans and in fact expand them – including adding three years on to the working life of most French people, a policy in line with that of Presidential rival Valérie Pécresse.

President of the National Assembly Richard Ferrand, who will represent Emmanuel Macron during an audition of candidates before the CFDT on Thursday, is set to outline the plans in more detail.

Macron’s campaign team promised that pensions would be simplified under the reforms: the transition to 65 years will be rolled out over a 10-year period, and will be accompanied by a number of other reforms, including a new minimum pension of €1,100 per month for those who have a full work history.

In addition, Emmanuel Macron wants to remove “the main special regimes” including those of workers at RATP or EDF, Le Figaro has reported.

The paper added that France’s pensions bill was €327.9 billion in 2019, or 13.5 percent of GDP, and the pension pot was in deficit to the tune of €18 billion in 2020.

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Azerbaijan vehemently rejects the accusation it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the Paris government.

But it is just the latest in a litany of tensions between Paris and Baku and not the first time France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind an alleged disinformation campaign.

The riots in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, were sparked by moves to agree a new voting law that supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.

Paris points to the sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols in the protests, while a group linked to the Baku authorities is openly backing separatists while condemning Paris.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” interior minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2 when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.

But he added: “Even if there are attempts at interference… France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better”.

“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said.

“We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”

In images widely shared on social media, a reportage broadcast Wednesday on the French channel TF1 showed some pro-independence supporters wearing T-shirts adorned with the Azerbaijani flag.

Tensions between Paris and Baku have grown in the wake of the 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive that Azerbaijan waged to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Darmanin said Azerbaijan – led since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar – was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, the Paris government also banned social network TikTok from operating in New Caledonia.

Tiktok, whose parent company is Chinese, has been widely used by protesters. Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation coming from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told Public Senat television that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months”.

He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors”.

But he accused Azerbaijan of “seizing on internal problems.”

A French government source, who asked not to be named, said pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts had on Wednesday posted an edited montage purporting to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

“It’s a pretty massive campaign, with around 4,000 posts generated by (these) accounts,” the source told AFP.

“They are reusing techniques already used during a previous smear campaign called Olympia.”

In November, France had already accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at damaging its reputation over its ability to host the Olympic Games in Paris. Baku also rejected these accusations.