The president said he would consult with unions and other political parties on the pace and timing of pension reform, raising the likelihood that the legal retirement age would be 64 by 2027 instead of his original plan to make it 65 by 2030. Macron also supported the possibility of holding a referendum on the unpopular reform of France’s costly pension system, which is based on a legal retirement age for men and women of 62 years. “I’m clearly opening the door” to a lower retirement age, he said in an interview with BFM TV on Monday night, adding that “65 years was not a dogma”. “I do not want to divide the country,” Macron added. The planned pension reform was Macron’s most controversial proposal in the first round of voting on April 10, when he and Le Pen won seats in the second round on April 24. said the president. Protest in Paris against pension reforms in January this year © Thomas Samson / AFP / Getty Images Macron’s opponents, Le Pen and runner-up Jean-Luc Melanson’s runner-up in the first round, had both initially pushed for a retirement age of 60. Lepen later changed her position to a legal retirement age of 62. , however people who started working between the ages of 17 and 20 could leave earlier. On Tuesday, while campaigning in the industrial city of Mulhouse where Melanson won the most votes, Macron was full of questions about pensions. “If necessary, we can have review clauses to reassure people,” he said, suggesting that the retirement age could be reconsidered by future governments. He said this was in line with his commitment after the first round of elections to unite the French if re-elected. “I can not say on Sunday that I reach out to bring people together and then not move,” he said.

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France has one of the highest public sector pension accounts among industrialized countries and an early real retirement threshold compared to its neighbors. It spends about 13.7 percent of gross domestic product on pensions, almost double the OECD average, according to the agency. Macron tried and failed to renew the pension system in his first term and negotiated with the unions for a plan that would have turned 42 different systems into one and forced some people to work harder. The movement sparked strikes and protests for months. Some aspects of Macron’s planned reform are likely to remain intact, such as the abolition of early retirement schemes for state-backed companies. He also said that the changes would include exemptions for people with more physical jobs, in order to provide them with an early retirement and to allow those who start working at a younger age to leave the workforce earlier. Opponents were skeptical of Macron’s change of tactics. Manuel Bompard, Mélenchon’s campaign leader, told Public Sénat TV on Tuesday that left-wing voters would like a clearer commitment to a referendum on the age of pensions. Macron hopes to beat Melanson’s voters before the second round of the month against Le Pen.

Lepen rejected the idea that the president would compromise. “I do not trust Macron at all, especially not even 10 days before the second round,” he told France Inter radio. “It has not held a referendum for five years. . . he will go to the end with his obsession with retirement at 65 “. In a March poll published by the newspaper Les Echos, 69 percent of those polled said they opposed Macron’s proposal to raise the retirement age. Support was higher among voters who supported Les Republicains candidate Valérie Pécresse, whose program included the same reform, according to the Conservative Party’s focus on fiscal discipline. After a poor run in the first round, her mentor, former President Nicolas Sarkozy, said she would vote for Macron in the second round because of his “experience” in crisis management and an “economic program that valued work”.