French President Emmanuel Macron
Photo:
ludovic marin/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
French unions staged another nationwide strike on Tuesday, as they try to block President
Emmanuel Macron’s
pension reforms. The stakes are high for the French economy, but they also underscore the challenge that faces aging democracies across the West in an increasingly dangerous world.
Mr. Macron wants to reform a pension system that consumes some 14% of its gross domestic product and is becoming less sustainable every year as the ratio of active workers and current retirees narrows. The Macron government anticipates accumulated deficits of some €150 billion over the next decade absent reform.
The government’s reform proposal involves gradually increasing the retirement age for most workers to 64 from the current 62 by 2030. That would still mean the French retire at a younger age than their counterparts in Germany, the U.K., Spain and most other countries in Europe. The Macron plan also includes a modest increase in the minimum monthly pension payment.
Growing pension costs are coinciding with new demands for military spending flowing from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the rise of other global threats. “There are no more peace dividends as a result of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine,” Mr. Macron said last month, and he’s right.
Mr. Macron hasn’t released the details of his military-funding package, but he says he wants to increase spending to €413 billion between 2024 and 2030. That’s up from the €328 billion or so that France spent on defense between 2016 and 2022, according to NATO.
Mr. Macron wants an increase of some 60% in intelligence spending, including investment in drones and other surveillance tools. He also seeks to buy more Rafale fighter planes and a new aircraft carrier. And he wants to harden France’s cyber and air defenses, develop remotely guided munitions, and invest in quantum technology and…
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