With childcare and more part-time jobs, France’s women have to work longer for smaller pensions than their male colleagues, and their anger is rising
“Women on Fire! The government is failing Women on Fire! We’re in the fight. NaNaNa NaNa Na Na … stop your blah blah,” they sang.
“If you’re a woman in France, you should be out on the streets protesting,” said Fabienne Oudart, 56, an artist who joined Thursday’s march in Paris. “Already we earn less than men and that means lower pensions. This reform shows no respect for those women working in low-paid and often part-time jobs.”
Macron’s centrist government insists the pensions overhaul is necessary to keep the system financially afloat as the population ages and lives longer. In France, the contributions made by those currently in work pay for the pensions of the retired. The new law will not mean all workers packing up at 64, as it will require 43 years of contributions for a full pension.
The sexual inequality inherent in the law was highlighted in January when the government presented the bill along with an accompanying 112-page report on its aims and effects that showed women would have to postpone their retirement by up to nine months longer than men.
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