French President Emmanuel Macron’s planned reform of the pension system cannot go ahead as planned in the wake of the pandemic crisis. Retreating on one of the signature reforms he promised to push through when he came to office.
Macron said to the reporters that he does not think that the reform as it was originally envisaged can go ahead as such. It was very ambitious and extremely complex. And that is why it generated anxiety, which they must admit that. Doing it right now would mean ignoring the fact that there are already a lot of worries, said the president.
Before the former investment banker’s election in 2017, one of Macron’s key campaign promises was the reform of France’s costly and complex pension system. In spring 2022, the new presidential elections are coming up. And so, Macron had to decide whether to risk pushing ahead with the polarising reform, or make a bid for re-election with a new plan. When the details of the reform were unveiled, it prompted a wave of strikes and protests from trade unions. As a result of this the Paris public transport network came to a virtual halt for weeks together.
Macron put all his centrist government’s reform plan on hold, in March 2020 at the start of the pandemic. This includes the pension reform. The government said that talks with unions about pension reform would be postponed until 2021, because of the pandemic situation that prevailed in 2020, as they need to focus on economic recovery. Deferring the reform until after the 2022 presidential elections might defuse union and voter concerns. But also, it risks undermining Macron’s credibility as an economic reformer.
Raising the retirement age by two years to 64, replacing dozens of sector-specific regimes with a universal, points-based system and doing away with legacy regimes in the state railways, utilities and other industries where some workers are entitled to retire on a full pension years before the average retirement age of 62, were all included in this reform plan.
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