French premier Michel Barnier has sought to make his belt-tightening budget more palatable by arguing that it requires everyone to share the burden to address a national deficit crisis.
Yet politicians from across the spectrum have jumped to the defence of one particular category of the population, asking for it to be spared: France’s 17mn retirees.
Barnier only floated a modest cut to pensions next year by proposing a six-month delay to an annual inflation adjustment, which would save €3.6bn on the roughly €380bn spent on benefits to retirees.
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