Macron to soften critical pension reform to seek support as he enters a tight run-off

In an attempt to court working-class voters in his bid, Emmanuel Macron has backed away from a pledged proposal to raise the retirement age in France to 65 to defeat the far-right leader Marine Le Pen in a tight election run-off.

The president declared he would rethink framing the age and timing of the pension reform, and for this, he would approach the unions and political parties. He indicated that the retirement age could be raised to 64 by 2027, unlike his original proposal to 65 by 2030.

Earlier, Macron pledged to execute the pension reform proposal during his leadership in the office. But the proposal proved to be one of the most controversial plans entering the voting first round on April 10, where Le Pen and Macron qualified for the election on April 24. Le Pen scored 23% and Macron 28% in the first round. The proposal led to opposing views among the base and caused strikes and protests.


First-round runner-up Jean-Luc Melenchon and Le Pen, both Macron's opponents, initially urged to retain the retirement age to 60. Later, Le Pen proposed the retirement age to be 62, although those who start working at the age of 17 to 20 would have to leave earlier.

While his campaign, Macron was queried about many things related to retirement reforms and pensions. The present retirement age in France is 62. According to the organization's statistics, France spends about 13.7% of the GDP on pensions. It could be evident that France has fixed the early retirement age and has the highest public sector pension bills.

Le Pen has denied Macron's word of compromise. She said that Macron has never held a referendum in five years, and she cannot risk trusting him, especially ten days down from the run-off. According to Les Echos newspaper, 69% of respondents opposed Macron's retirement age proposal.