‘It’s now or never’: Protests sweep France over plans to raise retirement age

At the age of 35, Mylène is far from retirement. Nevertheless, for the first time in her life, she protested on Tuesday against the French government’s plans to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.

This is the case for many young French people, who enter the labor market later than their elders. Mylène feels even more disadvantaged as a woman.

“As women, we are in principle obliged to take maternity leave if we have children,” she told Euronews reporter Cyril Fourneris. “We are obliged to stop our careers. If we start again, we will not work full-time but part-time. This will affect our pension later on. If this reform continues, we cannot go back. It is now or never.”

As the Place d’Italie in Paris fills with protesters, Mylène joins her boyfriend Benjamin, who says he doesn’t have high hopes for retirement. But he wants to be heard:

“I’m protesting to tell the government I’m fed up with all these reforms they’re trying to make. For me, they’re trying to break up the entire public service.”

President Emmanuel Macron and his government claim that this reform is “essential” to “save France’s pay-as-you-go system”. An argument that does not convince the demonstrators.

“The goal is that all this mobilization will simply put an end to this reform,” says Mylène. “We will have to do a lot of demonstrations, I think, because they really don’t seem to listen to us. So it will take time. But I still believe in it.”

Mobilizing young people will be one of the keys to this protest movement. At the moment it is difficult to quantify. However, the polls are clear: the vast majority of workers remain against this reform.