More than a million people demonstrate in France against pension reforms Wagner boss criticizes Putin and does not mince words

During a major strike and mass protests across France on Thursday, more than 1.1 million people opposed the government’s pension schemes. This has been announced by the Ministry of the Interior. In Paris alone, 80,000 people protested. The unions spoke of more than two million people participating in the more than 200 protests.

Because the current pension system cannot be financed in the long term due to the aging population, the French government wants to gradually increase the retirement age from 62 to 64 years. In addition, the number of payment years required for a full pension must increase more rapidly. A number of individual systems with privileges for certain professional groups will be abolished. The monthly minimum pension will increase to around 1200 euros.

The retirement age is currently 62 years. In fact, however, the pension starts later on average: those who have not paid in long enough to be entitled to a full pension also continue to work longer.

Already on the first day of action, more people took to the streets against the planned pension reforms of the central government under President Emmanuel Macron than at the height of the protests in his first term. At that time, after weeks of strikes against a pension reform at the end of 2019, more than 800,000 people participated in one day. The reform was eventually postponed due to the corona pandemic. (sda/dpa)