From a recent Economist article titled State of denial:

Under a plan unveiled by Eric Woerth, the labour minister, France intends to raise the legal retirement age progressively from 60 to 62 by 2018 … this alone will not meet the state pension-fund shortfall …

And this is what everyone is protesting about?!?

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has recently stirred emotions by discussing delaying the minimum retirement age in France, and/or extending retirement contributions. Here’s a demand by one of France’s many workers unions:

La retraite à 60 ans et à taux plein, sans augmentation, ni allongement de la durée des cotisations.

Translation: Complete retirement at 60 years old, without raising contributions or extending the contribution period.

Seriously, people?

Let’s take the example of Japan, a country with one of the longest life expectancies on the planet, and a good social medicine program. You might think that these are good things, and indeed they are, but combined they produce disastrous results for Japan’s economy: with more and more people living longer lives in retirement, the state bears a bigger and bigger financial burden to care for them.

With French unions short-sightedly demanding a freeze on the retirement age, they are conscripting themselves to the same fate as Japan’s system – radical overhaul or complete bankruptcy. It would be much easier now to adopt sensible changes to France’s retirement system than wait for disaster.