French opposition to pension reform has nothing to do with a 'work-shy' attitude 

Protests are the result of a profound and widely shared rejection of the imposition of a neoliberal political and economic order that erodes workers’ rights

The first key factor driving the current protests is the contents of the proposed pension reforms themselves. The reform will change the legal age of retirement from 62 to 64, while requiring 43 years of contributions to retire on a full pension. Picture: AP/Jeremias Gonzalez

Recent weeks have seen huge crowds take to the streets across France to protest the Macron administration’s plans to push back the legal pension age. 

While some of the international coverage has relied on reductive stereotypes of the French as work-shy radicals congenitally inclined to protest, the reality on the ground in a society that has higher productivity than the EU average and among the lowest unionisation rates in Western Europe is profoundly different.