The French and Retirement

This January, there will be plenty of strikes in France to protest the change in retirement age that president Macron wants to implement. He’d like push up the retirement age by three years to 65, making younger generations work longer.  

The minimum retirement age would be gradually increased from 62 now to 65 by 2031. This would apply to people who worked enough to qualify. Those who do not fulfill the conditions, like many women who interrupt their career to raise their children, must currently work until 67. 

Pensions and vacations are very important to my countrymen and changing it will be tough, but doing nothing would force the government to decrease the size of pensions.

Further, among the OECD nations French are the ones who retire among the earliest, so someone if not Macron should diplomatically remind them about that “French exception!”