PARIS – Ms Patricia Humbert has never joined a demonstration in her life. But for the first time, the 57-year-old teaching assistant is considering protesting against Emmanuel Macron’s flagship pension reform.

The president wants the French to work longer by pushing the minimum retirement age from 62 to 64, triggering a first wave of strikes and demonstrations on Thursday. Ms Humbert said she probably just won’t be able to keep handling students with learning difficulties until she turns 67, when she gets a full pension.

“From the students’ perspective, I’m already a dinosaur. How will work look like when I am closer to retirement age?” wondered Ms Humbert, from Wasselonne in northeast France. 

Women are especially likely to mobilise against Mr Macron’s plan, with a recent poll finding 63 per cent of them back the demonstrations, compared to 54 per cent of men. The government expects massive strikes backed by most unions including the usually moderate CFDT, and the left. 

A Macron adviser said the government expects discontent to rise even more in coming weeks as unions firm up their positions and Parliament debates the legislation. The adviser, who asked not to be named, said they don’t expect to reach any breakthrough with labour groups who contend that there are better ways to boost employment among seniors and rebalance the system, including tax increases - which the government has ruled out. 

Mr Macron himself has less to lose than three years ago, when he first had a go at pension reform – he can’t run for a third term in 2027 and he’s determined to seal his legacy as a pro-business reformer. He doesn’t need the backing of Parliament to pass his reform, thanks to a controversial constitutional provision that bypasses it. 

While some women will benefit, many of them are unhappy about the prospect of working longer or retiring with a lower pension, as a consequence of Mr Macron’s plan to make people work for at least 43 years to get a full pension, compared to 42 years today. The precise content of the reform and how it will impact women will only be known on Monday when the cabinet unveils it.

Ms Humbert, who trained as an accountant and paused her career for two decades to raise her three children, won’t get her full pension if she retires earlier than 67, and the latest overhaul means her pension income could be even smaller than she had expected.

As in many other countries, women like Ms Humbert tend to have disrupted careers due to maternity leaves: 80 per cent of people with disrupted careers are female. Women retire later than men, and around a fifth of them work beyond the age of 65 already, compared to one out of 10 men. The poverty rate among older women is also higher than among men.

Ms Rachel Saada, 61, manages her own law firm and specialises in labour issues. Ms Saada, who started working at 23, loves her job and isn’t worried about her pension, but she will join Thursday’s protests to defend the “right to do something else with your life than work”.

Some sweeteners

The government says the reform is designed not only to guarantee funding pensions in the long run in a country that’s ageing fast, but also to fix inequalities in the system. Mr Macron’s plan comes with some sweeteners: the minimum pension will increase for low-wage earners who worked 43 years, and women will be able to take parental leave into account.

Still, these sweeteners are unlikely to quell grievances on the streets. 

The government’s pledge to guarantee minimum pensions of 1,200 euros (S$1,711) for those on the minimum wage is a good thing, says Dr Rachel Silvera, an economist who teaches at the Paris Nanterre University, a bastion of 1968 anti-government marches.

But the fact that it will only apply to those who had a full career means many women will not benefit because they delayed or interrupted their careers for care-giving including motherhood, or did temporary work. Interrupted careers are one of the reasons why women’s pension payments are currently 40 per cent lower than men’s. 

“A few measures in favour of social justice don’t make it up for a reform that’s largely missing the point in terms of promoting gender equality,” said Dr Silvera, adding that the gap between men and women’s pensions is likely to widen. 

In 2019, Ms Saada had already protested against Mr Macron’s previous reform plan, which the president ended up withdrawing after months of strikes, citing the Covid-19 pandemic. People like her who started work at 23 will still be affected by the rise of the minimum retirement age to 64, but will get a higher basic pension than those who contribute to the general regime.

“I’m free to set my own schedule, my income is more than decent, I love my job, and yet after 40 years I must say I’m quite tired, so I can’t help thinking of hairdressers who spend their whole life standing, breathing hair products, or cashiers who suffer from muscular pain,” Ms Saada says. “The point isn’t to retire when you are already broken.” BLOOMBERG