President Francois Hollande may only manage a lightweight reform of France’s indebted pension system, with trade unions preparing street protests and his own Socialist Party warning it would oppose painful measures.
Fellow Europeans say France risks damaging its own standing and that of the euro zone among investors, and upsetting southern members struggling with harsh reforms, if it fails to address the deficit in its pension funding.
But left-wing lawmakers are determined to prevent any erosion in the old-age provision enjoyed by the French.
Hollande, who has already excluded any outright rise in the retirement age from the bill due before parliament in September, faces resistance to his more modest plan of extending the 41.5-year contribution payment period required for a full pension.
Aside from the risk of protests and strikes hitting Europe’s second-largest economy, Hollande’s room for manoeuvre is further crimped by the fact that even a tiny revolt among back-benchers would scupper his three-seat parliamentary majority.
“It will be an intermediate reform: one that is just enough to appease markets but not brutal enough to upset things at home,” said economist Henri Sterdyniak of France’s OFCE economic observatory.
