PARIS: As the bill began its bumpy passage through parliament on Tuesday, President Emmanuel Macron and his administration prepared for a third round of widespread strikes and protests against proposals to extend the French workforce's retirement age.
Trade unions have once again urged the public to take to the streets in large numbers as workers from various sectors walk out, which will disrupt rail services, cancel classes, and affect refinery deliveries.
The government claims that in order to keep the budget of one of the most generous pension systems in the industrial world in the black, people must work two more years, or for the majority, until the age of 64.
According to polls, the French spend the most years in retirement of any OECD nation. This is a deeply cherished benefit that a sizable majority would be hesitant to give up.
On Monday afternoon, as lawmakers started debating the bill, Labour Minister Olivier Dussopt stated in parliament that "our pension system is structurally in deficit." We are acting in the interests of both our generation and future generations.
By 2030, the reform, according to the government, will enable gross savings of more than 17 billion euros ($18 billion).
Unions and left-leaning opponents claim that the funds can be obtained from other sources, most notably the wealthy. Macron's conservative adversaries, whose backing he needs for a functional majority in the National Assembly, want to make accommodations for those who begin working early.
Francois Hollande, a former president of France's socialist party, said on BFM TV that "the reform will never be accepted if the most wealthy don't contribute." "The highest earners contributed in every previous pension reform, including that of (conservative) Nicolas Sarkozy."
"There is nothing here."
During the first two days of the strike in January, more than a million people demonstrated in cities all over France as public pressure mounted against a government that maintains it will not budge on the main tenets of the reforms.
The majority of the more than 20,000 amendments in the parliament come from the left-leaning Nupes alliance. The government may send the reform to the Senate after just two weeks, though, because it was added to a yearly social security bill.
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne offered to allow some people who start working early to also retire early as a way of appeasing conservatives, but lawmakers from Les Republicains (LR) are divided over whether the proposed starting age of 20 to 21 is low enough.
"Someone who begins their work earlier also ends it earlier. What's so confusing about that, @Elisabeth Borne? "Leading LR critic of the current proposal Aurelien Pradie tweeted.