France young protest higher retirement age

PARIS, March 9, (AP): Young people in France - including some who haven’t even entered the job market yet - are protesting Thursday against the government’s push to raise the retirement age.

Students blocked access to some universities and high schools, and a youth-led protest is planned in Paris as part of nationwide strikes and demonstrations against the pension bill under debate in parliament.

For a generation already worried about inflation, uncertain job prospects and climate change, the retirement bill is stirring up broader questions about the value of work.

“I don’t want to work all my life and be exhausted at the end,” said Djana Farhaig, a 15-year-old who blocked her Paris high school with other students during a protest action last month. “It is important for us to show that the youth is engaged for its future.”

People in their teens and early 20s have taken part in protests against the retirement reform since the movement kicked off in January, but student groups and unions are seeking to call attention to young people’s concerns Thursday.

President Emmanuel Macron wants to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 and make other changes he says are needed to keep the public pension system financially stable as the population ages. Opponents argue that wealthy taxpayers or companies should pitch in more to finance the system instead.

Quentin Queller, a 23-year-old student who attended an earlier round of protests, said, “64 is so far away, it is depressing.”

He questioned the idea that hard work equals happiness, arguing that “we should work less and have more free time.” He and others echoed concerns by older protesters that instead of working to live, France is moving toward a system where people would have to live for work.

At one protest, a teenage boy held a placard saying: “I don’t want my parents to die at work.”

Blocked

Like dozens of colleges, Nanterre university in the western suburbs of Paris has been partly blocked since Tuesday by students opposing the pension reform, although by Thursday, numbers were beginning to tail off.

Alex Ribeiro, a 21-year-old humanities student at the university, said he hoped the youth strike will pressure the government to reconsider the retirement reform and consider young people’s future in the labor market and their parents’ prospects for a decent life in retirement after decades of hard work.

Ribeiro is concerned for his mother, who should be retiring soon after working as a cleaner for decades. “She has been working since she was 12,” Ribeiro said, adding that “she won’t have the physical and mental capacity to continue” working for two more years if the government raises the retirement age.