France: mass mobilization in public protest at pension reforms

On 05 December France embarked on a period of instability, the length of which is hard to predict. Although it is the transport workers, lawyers, doctors, gas and electricity workers and public sector workers who are driving the mobilization, a majority of the umbrella organisation (CGT, FO, CFE-CGC, Unsa) are also calling for an inter-professional movement. At the heart of this social dispute is the government’s planned pension reforms that will see the current 42 pensions schemes amalgamate into a single universal scheme that will be entirely points-based, and omitting factors hitherto included such as career length, income levels, etc. The government is defending what it terms as a systemic reform in the pursuit of equity (one rule to apply universally), and comprehensibility (simpler to understand). Ambiguous governmental messages, combined with calls by some for a fresh parametric reforms to the system (affecting age and contribution length, and which have to date resulted in the progressive delaying of full pension retirement age ranges) have ended up annoying everyone, even those in the ruling majority and some union bodies otherwise prepared to work on the systemic reform idea. Nothing concrete has yet been put on the table for consideration and social dialogue with the social partners is set to continue on 09 and 10 December with the Prime Minister likely to present the choices made mid-December so the draft legislation can be presented at the start of 2020. The government is confident it can defuse the social unrest, especially via safety valves such as delaying the date for the legislation’s entry into force and by only having the reforms take gradual effect.