PARIS (MNI) – The day after mass demonstrations in France against
the government’s pension reform bill, President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed
several minor adjustments to the plan to allow more people to retire
early.

However, the “primary axis” of the reform — which pushes back the
minimum retirement age from 60 to 62 and the age for retirement with
full pension from 65 to 67 — is not open to negotiation, Sarkozy said
after the weekly cabinet meeting.

“There is no question of revisiting this point,” he declared in a
written statement.

The proposed changes concern people who have suffered physically at
their jobs or who began work at an early age.

The degree of physically disability necessary to retire at the age
of 60 should be lowered to 10% from 20%, Sarkozy argued. This change
would allow three times more workers to benefit than the initial 20%,
government spokesman Luc Chatel explained.

Those who started work the age of 18 and who have otherwise
fulfilled the requirements for a full pension should be allowed to
retire at 60 or before, along with those who began even earlier and were
already concerned by the initial plan.

The government intends to propose these amendments to the reform
bill in the course of the parliamentary debate that began Tuesday.

Between one million and two million people took to streets
throughout France the same day to demand that the government overhaul
the reform completely, including the higher retirement age. The success
of the turnout has encouraged union leaders to plan more demonstrations
in the coming weeks.

The “concessions” offered by Sarkozy will clearly not appease
opponents of the bill, which aims to assure the solvency of the
pay-as-you-go pension system by 2018.

However, as the government has a solid majority in parliament,
there is little chance that later retirement age will be modified.

Since Sarkozy has rejected the option of smaller pensions or larger
contributions, the retirement age is the “heart” of the reform to deal
with the aging of society, Chatel explained: “Two more years of work to
finance 15 more years of life.”

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