French support for social movements related to pension reforms 1995-2023
At the beginning of 2023, the main French labor unions called for strikes and demonstrations on January 19 against the government's planned pension reform. Presented as the emblematic measure of Emmanuel Macron's second five-year term, this reform now occupies a central place in the public debate. However, the French do not appear to be very enthusiastic about it. Questioned in January 2023, after the Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne announced the outlines of the reform, a little more than half of the French were in favor of the social movement opposing it, and more than a third of them even said they supported it. However, support for this mobilization is lower than it was in 1995 (62 percent) or in 2010 (71 percent).
For months, the French government has presented the reform as if it were self-evident and wanted by the population: it was one of the main campaign promises of Emmanuel Macron during the April 2022 elections, yet he has been re-elected. This syllogism, while ignoring the defeat of the legislative elections, has allowed the supporters of the reform to avoid debates.
However, the polls taken during this period show that a majority of the French population are opposed to the reform, and in particular to raising the legal retirement age: when questioned in September 2022, only 37 percent of people were in favour of raising the retirement age to 64 years, and 22 percent in favour of raising it to 65 years. Moreover, less than a third considered the reform a priority, and among those who voted for President Macron in 2022, half considered the reform important, but not a priority.
The 1995 mobilizations against the "Juppé Plan": a reference for the unions
The strikes of December 1995 were the most important since those of May 1968. Although they did not have a comparable scope - there was no general strike, the movement was almost non-existent in the private sector and only partially followed in the public sector - the average annual number of strike days in 1995 was six times higher than in the period 1982-1984, and according to the trade unions, over two million people were on the streets. At the time, Prime Minister Alain Juppé was proposing to reform the social security and pension system by aligning public sector pensions and special schemes with those of the private sector, thereby meeting with the hostility of a large part of public opinion. Since this "Juppé plan", the French government's draft laws on this subject have generated major social movements. The mobilizations of 1995 have become a reference point, and are used as a means of comparison by the union leaders at the origin of the January 2023 movement.2023, a reform regardless of public opinion?
Among the measures announced by the Prime Minister, an "adapted" system for long careers, measures to take better account of hardship, the revaluation of the minimum pension, the gradual raising of the legal retirement age to 64, and the end of special schemes.For months, the French government has presented the reform as if it were self-evident and wanted by the population: it was one of the main campaign promises of Emmanuel Macron during the April 2022 elections, yet he has been re-elected. This syllogism, while ignoring the defeat of the legislative elections, has allowed the supporters of the reform to avoid debates.
However, the polls taken during this period show that a majority of the French population are opposed to the reform, and in particular to raising the legal retirement age: when questioned in September 2022, only 37 percent of people were in favour of raising the retirement age to 64 years, and 22 percent in favour of raising it to 65 years. Moreover, less than a third considered the reform a priority, and among those who voted for President Macron in 2022, half considered the reform important, but not a priority.
