Paris, known as the hub of fashion, art, cuisine, diversity, and literature, is reeking with an estimated 10,000 tons of trash on its streets. Piles of uncollected garbage cans are scattered amid continuous labor strikes by sanitation workers. Nonetheless, instead of blaming the labor workers for neglecting their duty, the French people are attributing this chaos to President Emmanuel Macron, who is overriding the Parliament to pass the new pension reform bill. As this new bill directly requires the sacrifice of labor workers, unions are blockading oil refineries to fight against the raising of the retirement age. Chanting their national motto “liberté, égalité, fraternité” (liberty, equality, fraternity), President Macron’s proposed reform of the pension age has awakened mass civil unrest since January 19, 2023.

The pension reform issue started decades ago due to the prolonged life expectancy, as France has one of the lowest retirement ages among countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). In terms of pension budgets, anticipated shortfalls have recently received the spotlight after the government’s Pensions Advisory Council (COR) called for immediate action. Thus, President Macron firmly resolved to increase the retirement age from 62 to 64 years old despite immense backlash, before the deficit reaches 13 billion United States dollars (USD) by 2027. However, this is not the first time President Macron considered raising the retirement age. As pension reform was one of his major presidential election pledges, President Macron pushed the bill in 2017, but faced mass strikes at that time and so postponed his plans. Now, he appears to be back to his old ways.

Pension Reform and Strikes

Millions of protestors have been marching on the streets since January, leaving unpleasant waste and debris in countless public settings. This has been accompanied by the delay and cancellations of trains and air traffic, oil refineries, railways, and TotalEnergies (TTEF). The demonstrators altogether demanded President Macron’s withdrawal, who forced the passing of the reform by wielding his constitutional power to win Parliament’s vote. “This problem can be solved in a different way, through taxation. Workers should not have to pay for the public sector deficit,” stated Laurent Berger, leader of the French Democratic Confederation of Labor (CFDT), France’s biggest labor union, said during an interview with Reuters.

This act of demonstrations by labor workers leaves one question unanswered: Why are blue-collar workers the main victims of this retirement age reform? It may seem strange, as the pension reform is to be mandated to every worker in France. However, the diagrams proposed by the National Institute of Statistics and Economics (INSEE) of France show how the new bill would be detrimental to the underprivileged class. Although it is true that life expectancies have risen by 20 years since 1946, mere comparisons undoubtedly fail to demonstrate the possible implications of health and life qualities, which greatly differ by age. The logic of French Labor Minister Olivier Dussopt’s statement that “We are living longer and therefore […] we have to work longer,” therefore, may not be universally applicable.

According to Le Monde, France’s representative press, disability-free life expectancy barely reached 64.4 years for men and 65.9 years for women. Moreover, the Directorate of Research, Studies, Evaluation, and Statistics (DREES) shows that one-third of blue-collar workers undergo discomfort after reaching age 63, while a quarter of white-collar workers do so in the first year of retirement, which implies a medical disparity according to income quintiles. Therefore, the reformation may result in deterioration of the overall health of labor workers as stated by Le Monde, which calls for a reassessment of the effectiveness of the reform.

Against French Culture?

The labor workers’ main concern is that the Macron government financially burdens vulnerable classes while alleviating affluent classes’ financial pay. In 2017, during the first months of his presidential mandate, Macron abolished a special wealth tax imposed on the privileged and changed the labor law so that companies could hire and fire employees more freely. However, as the pretext of recent pension reform is financial deficits, this disproportion seems ironic to most French people. “Macron never takes the money [from] where it is abundant: the windfall taxes, the dividends, the companies,” Floriane Verheil, a 44-year-old museum worker, stated during an interview with AFP, France’s global news agency, while joining a demonstration on January 31.

Opposed to the free market that comprises most of Europe, including the United Kingdom (UK), the pension system in France is led by “solidarity between the generations,” as The Guardian phrases. As all French labor workers are bestowed a pension after retirement to guarantee their welfare, the working generations and the government both support the seniors by obligatorily charged payrolls. Thus, the solidarity between the younger generations and seniors is a key cornerstone of French culture, deemed as a steadfast infrastructure. Looking forward to their relaxed “second lives” after retirement, the working generations expect high returns as the government promised. Thus, by raising the retirement age by two years, the Macron government is likely to break its promise to the people. In order to stop this resistance and the internal conflict within France, resolutions based on sincere discourse should immediately be established. As the strikes never seem to end, President Macron may have to take a step toward hearing the people’s voice in order to achieve national reconciliation.

On March 22, President Macron stated, “Do you think I enjoy this reform? No, but there are not a hundred ways to balance the accounts […] this reform is necessary.” As President Macron decided to skip the parliament vote using his constitutional privilege, his firm decision is likely to bring mass backlash from the French people. Surprisingly, a mere two-year increase in retirement age has shaken French laborers to their core. With the seemingly little possibility for the two opposing sides of the reform to back down, thorough conversation and reconciliation may be the most important task for those involved in order to revive the paralyzed city of Paris.