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  • https://www.worldeconomics.com/Thoughts/Frances-Retirement-Risk.aspx?ThoughtID=274

    France’s Unsustainable Retiree Burden on its Shrinking Workforce

    Decades of low fertility are causing the French working-age population to fall. Simultaneously, retirees are living longer and forming an ever-larger part of the population. These factors are causing an extraordinary decline in the number of working-age people available to support the expanding number of retirees.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yvq1jy2xgo

    Fall in fertility rate becomes big challenge for provincial France

    https://www.france24.com/en/france/20240620-how-france-s-far-right-changed-the-debate-on-immigration

    How France’s far right changed the debate on immigration

    For the first time since its founding, France’s anti-immigration National Rally (RN) party has clawed its way to within arm’s reach of governing.

    https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2024/09/28/french-public-debt-hits-new-high_6727571_19.html

    French public debt hits new high

    France's debt has reached a record €3.228 trillion, amounting to 112% of GDP, well above the 60% cap set by EU regulations.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_France

    This is why France continues to be among the OECD countries whose tax rate is the highest. Taxes account for 46,1% of GDP against 34% on average in OECD countries.

    https://www.politico.eu/article/markets-hold-their-breaths-as-frances-pensions-debate-faces-make-or-break-moment/

    French pension ‘conclave’ faces make-or-break moment

    The prime minister’s effort to find common ground on retirement reform has a Monday deadline.

    Several powerful unions left the table early in the conclave in opposition to Bayrou's refusal to go back on the legislation's most contentious aspect, the retirement age increase from 62 to 64 years for most workers — which a significant number of lawmakers and large swathes of the public still oppose.

    Most agencies have already slapped France's credit rating with a negative outlook due to its public finances and the political instability crippling the country, which has worsened since President Emmanuel Macron's decision to call snap elections last summer, leading to a hung parliament.

    I mean, given that combination of factors, something has to give at some point. Declining fertility means that there are fewer workers entering the workforce to support retirees. People angry about immigration make it hard to fill in gaps in the workforce created via low fertility via immigration. Already-high taxation means that it's hard to raise taxes to fill revenue shortfalls and keep the French economy competitive. The debt being already high from COVID-19-related costs limits how much further the can can be kicked down the road by running a higher deficit. Opposition to a higher retirement age means that one can't cover the costs by decreasing the amount of time that people spend in retirement relative to in the workforce.

    You can, to some degree, trade off one of those for another, but if all of them are an issue at the same time, there's limited room for the government to act. And a lot of those start creating positive feedback situations if one starts to get near trouble, which one doesn't want.

    • Worker productivity has dramatically increased since WWII. A single worker is able to produce a lot more food, healthcare, and so on than they did in 1950. Of course there's the common problem that a lot of the result of that productivity has been captured by the top. Probably less so in France than some other countries but still. If you look at the real economy, I think you might find that we are able to produce the basics needed with a small proportion of our working population. We already support a much higher retiree/worker ratio than we did a few decades ago and I think that's the reason. There are many workers in unproductive sectors that didn't exist before the financialization phase who could be doing more useful work too. All the computing and automation we build could be used to increase productivity in relevant sectors too, instead of maximizing the time other workers spend glued to their phones.