The general retirement age in France was lowered from 65 to 60 in 1982, under long-serving President François Mitterrand (Socialist Party), who had then taken power with the support of the Communist Party.
Since then, there have been repeated attempts to change the legislation – attempts that the French have vigorously protested against.
In 1995, when Mitterrand had been replaced in the presidency by the bourgeois Jacques Chirac, an attempt was made to introduce a universal pension system and raise the retirement age in the public sector. Millions of French people took to the streets and demonstrated for three weeks, in what has been described as the largest protests in France since the May Revolution of 1968. The pension proposals were withdrawn.
In 2010, it was President Nicolas Sarkozy who wanted to raise the retirement age to 62. That was when the union central organizations last made common cause and announced a general strike. Millions of people took to the streets in protest. The retirement age was raised, although the government agreed to minor concessions.
At the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, large strikes were called in the country against President Emmanuel Macron’s plans for a major overhaul of the pension system. The strikes were the longest since 1968 and were supported by a majority of the French. In the end, the plans were put on hold, partly due to the covid pandemic – until now.