While the French are protesting so vehemently against a raise in their pension age that some of them are getting badly injured by police, on this side of the Channel things are rather different. Our Government is reportedly considering bringing forward a planned rise in the state pension to 68 from 2046 to the 2030s — and our protests aren’t quite so vociferous. Compare that to the French, who are fuming about a rise from 62 to 64 years old.
Of course, everyone understands why the state pension age is going up. As my colleague Melanie McDonagh noted in this column on Tuesday, we’re living far longer than we were back in the 1940s when the state pension age for men was set at 65. So if we want the same standard of public services, don’t we have to work longer?
