France’s recent legislation sparked a nationwide strike that led more than a million people to gather on the streets to protest against the provisions, raising the retirement age across the country.
On Thursday, the nationwide strike to protest against the controversial retirement age legislation has caused violent clashes with the police in Paris and other cities.
The violent protest followed a strike on similar concerns last January. This comes as more industrial actions are being planned for next week.
In an exclusive report published by CNN, the media outlet described that “what’s making the French so angry is a new retirement age that will still be one of the lowest in the industrialized world. Workers will be raised from 62 to 64.”
“That will still keep France below the norm in Europe and in many other developed economies, where the age at which full pension benefits apply is 65 and is increasingly moving towards 67. In the United States and the United Kingdom, the retirement age is between 66 and 67, depending on the year you were born. Current legislation envisages a further rise from 67 to 68 in Britain between 2044 and 2046 (although the timing of this increase is being reviewed and could change).” CNN added.
In response to the outrage and criticisms, the French government defended the retirement reform. However, the financing of pension systems raised a concern among many developed economies.
In a statement released by senior economics lecturer at Lancaster University in England Renaud Foucart at the time the French plan was proposed in January, he revealed that “Government agencies predict massive deficits in the coming years, as boomers continue to retire, and they need to make changes very quickly — otherwise they will lose money to invest in other things.”
The French move has also caused concern for Americans in the United States who wonder if they will also see a rise in age eligibility for retirement benefits.
However, according to Harrison Kass, raising the age should be “the last option because it would also proportionally increase the burden on the worker to work longer,” adding that “using tax revenues for excessive military spending should be used to preserve entitlement programs, which is the “light at the end of a four-decade tunnel” of work,” Patriot Wise wrote in its exclusive report.
