French Prime Minister Sebastien Le Corneille has proven once again that pension reform is the hottest political topic in France, promising to suspend the deeply unpopular reform from 2023 to prevent the government from falling, BTA writes, citing "Reuters".
On Tuesday, Le Corneille proposed postponing President Emmanuel Macron's reform until after the 2027 presidential election to secure a commitment from the Socialists not to support a vote of no confidence against him.
Difficult to achieve after weeks of street protests in 2023 and passed without a vote in parliament, the reform envisages a gradual increase in the legal retirement age by 2030 from 62 to 64 years.
While the reform merely brings France closer to other European Union countries in this respect, it undermines a particularly valuable social achievement and legacy of the left, which in 1982, under President François Mitterrand of the French Socialist Party, lowered the retirement age from 65 to 60.
Where does France rank compared to other EU countries?
The statutory retirement age in France is one of the lowest in the European Union. The average retirement age in the EU is 65 for men and 64.5 for women, both of which are expected to rise by two years in the coming decades, according to the European Commission’s Ageing Report last year.
Thanks to a combination of early retirement and significant life expectancy, the French have been in retirement longer than people in most other countries. Data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows that French men typically spend 23.3 years in retirement - more than in any other OECD country and significantly more than those in Germany, which has 18.8 years.
Are French pensioners better off after retirement?
Pensions in France represent a larger share of income received by workers before their retirement than in most countries, and pensioners enjoy one of the highest living standards in Europe when all sources of income are taken into account.
However, generosity comes at a price. France spends 14.2% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on pensions - well above the EU average of 11.7%, with only Austria and Italy spending more.
However, this spending helps to keep poverty among the elderly low: only 3.6% of French pensioners live in poverty, compared to an average of 12.5% for OECD countries.
Does everyone benefit?
While the official retirement age is low, actual retirement depends on how long a person has paid into the system. Under Macron's reform, the required contribution period was to be increased from 42 to 43 years by 2027.
This means that people who started working later - due to higher education or breaks - often work after the age of 62. Everyone can retire at 67 with a full pension, regardless of the length of their insurance period.
According to an OECD estimate, a French person who started working at the age of 22 would retire at 64.8 years - slightly above the EU average of 64.5 years, but below Germany's 65.8 years. However, many people retire earlier than the legal age. In France, the average retirement age is 60.7 years, compared to an OECD average of 64.4 years.