‘I can’t take any more’: Working-class French lament Macron’s push to raise retirement age

This photograph shows a worker at the Saint-Denis Pleyel Station, at Seine-Saint-Denis on the outskirts of Paris on February 5, 2021. © Ludovic Marin, AFP

The French government presented its proposed pension reforms on Tuesday – measures President Emmanuel Macron has long argued are necessary to make the system affordable over the long term, an argument critics vociferously contest. FRANCE 24 spoke to several workers who do arduous jobs – and who are up in arms about the plans to take away the cherished right to retire at 62.

The centrepiece of Macron's proposed pension overhaul, which Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne unveiled on Tuesday, involves raising the retirement age from 62 to 64, and increasing the total number of years people must work to qualify for a full pension.