France’s Macron plans end to retire-young rail pensions
President Emmanuel Macron wants to scrap rules allowing some state rail workers to retire on a full pension up to 10 years before most other French workers. The reform plan risks inflaming tensions with labor unions who led the biggest strikes of recent decades in 1995 against a similar proposal that the government of the time floated before abandoning it and losing power.
Macron has said his government will embark on overhauling France’s myriad pension schemes in early 2018, creating a single system for all. The shake-up of the pension scheme tailored for the SNCF state rail group would affect nearly 200,000 employees, in particular train drivers who can retire as early as age 52, a decade before the pension age of 62.
Macron first outlined the idea in an internal SNCF publication in July. He said he wanted a draft legislation presented early in 2018 and a reform that would be effective by mid-2018 or early 2019.
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