March 28, 2022: -France’s finance minister has admitted that trying to push back the country’s retirement age is a “risk” for President Emmanuel Macron because he seeks reelection but says it is necessary to reinforce and protect the French social system.

Macron’s campaign pledges for elections next month feature a shakeup of France’s complicated pensions system and the moving of the retirement age to 65 from 62. France has one of the earliest retirement ages among industrialized nations.

The president made a same kind of promise before the 2017′s election, but the final proposals were met with protests before being halted because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking to CNBC on Thursday evening, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said it was “risky, but necessary.”

“It is a necessity if you want to improve the global prosperity of the French nation, Because that’s the best way of protecting our social model. That’s the best way of guaranteeing all the French citizens that they will have access to a fair and efficient pension system,” he said.

One more option would be to increase taxes, but we don’t want to do that, he said, and added further that the administration wants to cut taxes instead.

“The different way would be to reduce the level of pensions. That’s also a solution that we want to avoid,” Le Maire said.

“So if you want to avoid those bad solutions, and if you want to reinforce and protect the French social system, you don’t have any other choice than to push back the retirement age,” Le Maire added.